Fall in New York City

Tips on Holiday Family Pictures

I’m writing a series of articles about holiday photos for a new site, Christmased.com.

Check out part one here!

In Remembrance

9/11

(2010 Tribute Lights.)

It’s been ten years, and the events of September 11 still seem surreal. I heard about it on the radio while driving to work (at a coffee shop). We kept the radio on in the back room and listened in snippets. The stream of customers continued almost as normal, and for awhile it was busy enough that I forgot what was going on.

Soon enough, it was decided to close the store, so I went home and watched horrific things happen on the television screen, over and over. I just couldn’t believe what was happening. What got me most was the tiny specks in the air that were people. After the reels started repeating, I had to turn it off.

I visited New York City for the first time in June 2002.  The banners were still covering the Trinity Church and the missing posters were still plastering the walls of the subway stations. We saw some firefighters near Trinity and they posed for a photo for me, and even let us climb into their truck with a firehelmet.

I truly can’t imagine what it was like to be in the city when all this happened. Just can’t wrap my mind around it; it hardly seems real. But it was. What an awful day.

Read through the stories and photos on Life.com for the experiences of photographers around the city.

New York City Portrait Photographer: Before and After

 

Meet my friend L!

She moved abroad last year, but is back in New York for the summer, which is great! Since she’s staying with us for a bit, the other night I made her model for me. I hadn’t done anything with my umbrella lately, so I set that up on one side of the coffee table and she was on the other side. It faced her directly, but I told her to angle this way. Below is the original, unedited image. I thought it was pretty good! The light hit her evenly, it’s a genuine smile–all in all I was pretty happy with it.

 

But of course, I knew I had to take it to Photoshop to clone out the wall sconce. First I used the content-aware fill, but I still had to do some major cloning and patching to get rid of the unevenness.

My flash unit (sb800) had been on TTL; it was still a bit dark. I brightened the whole image with an adjustment layer, which made it look even better. Then I remembered a new “toy” I just got on sale–Perfect Skin from Jen’s Fabulous Stuff. This was the first time I used it, and it did a great job! I also did a bit of teeth brightening.

Wow, much better! However, I figured I should tidy up the edges, so I cloned out the stray hairs. Et voila, here once again is the final image!

 

Valentine’s Day Portrait Special!

I’m excited to announce my first promotion of 2011!

Has it been awhile since you’ve had a nice portrait of you and your sweetie?

How about those of you who are happily single but would still like a nice portrait of yourself?

For the month of February, I’m offering two specials:

A: For Couples

Included:

A one-hour photoshoot at the location of your choice (your apartment, your favorite park, a neighborhood coffee shop, a museum, etc…)

One 8×10 printed on high-quality lustre paper from a professional lab

Choice of fridge magnet or sticker sheet

Disc containing images from the shoot

Cost: $100 (normally $150)

B: For Individuals

Included:

A one-hour photoshoot at the location of your choice

One 8×10 printed on high-quality lustre paper from a professional lab

Choice of fridge magnet or sticker sheet

Disc containing images from the shoot

Cost: $75 (normally  $100)

Taking a leap into 2011!

Did you have a good holiday season? I had almost two weeks off of work, and it was fantastic! This was our first Christmas as a married couple, as well as our first live tree. I’ve had a little fake tree for a few years that I was fine with, until I saw how full and gorgeous a real tree looked, and more importantly, smelled. I’m from the Pacific Northwest and I cannot tell you how much I love the smell of pine! We got our tree at a sidewalk tree ‘lot’ right across the street, and every time I walked through there, I happily inhaled as deeply as I could. I was pleasantly surprised that the pine scent never went away from our own tree, even though we had it for a good three weeks! Today we finished taking it down so we could bring it to Mulchfest at a neighborhood park. A woodchipper was set up for a few hours, which gobbled up the trees and made mulch that will feed new plants and trees around the city’s parks. (I can’t decide if that’s the tree living on in spirit, or tree cannibalism! Ha!)

We toasted a happy new year with a bunch of friends! I hope you rang in 2011 with family and/or friends and set the tone right for the coming months.

Some of you may know that one of my favorite photo genres is jumping. (If we’re doing a portrait, engagement or wedding session, it’s likely that I will ask you to jump!) So today, as the sun was beginning to set from a lovely blue sky, I set out to capture my first jump of the new year–a leap over the sun! One of the many goals I made for this year, in addition to expanding my photography, was to do 31 jumping photos this year, ideally before I turn 32 in November. In 2010, I did 31 jumping days, so this shouldn’t be a tough goal at all!

Merry Christmas and Happy Snowy New Year!

I went with some friends to check out the legendary Dyker Heights Christmas decorations. Some houses are seriously over the top–check out this two-story tall Santa!

Another house had these vintage carol singer figures (and many other things) in their yard:

One house featured dancing bear topiaries!

Their neighbor decked out their front yard tree with these pretty snowflakes:

 

On Christmas Day, my husband and I ventured into the city to enjoy the lights and decorations. We figured it would be a little less crowded, and it was. The night was perfect too; not super chilly and no wind. It was actually rather pleasant to walk around and see the holiday sights!

First stop was of course Rockefeller Center.

A friend told me about the UNICEF snowflake, on 57th and 5th Avenue. I’d never even heard of it before. It’s so pretty and sparkly!

Classic ornaments at Radio City:

Radio City itself was of course also decorated for the holidays.

I love how, with the right processing, it looks like it could still be 1950!

 

Of course, the day after Christmas, we were hit by a big blizzard! I never believe the forecasts about storms, especially when they’re all gloom and doom like this one. My prediction was for something like 5-8 inches of snow, but of course, it ended up being at least twice that! What a storm. We stayed inside, where it was nice and toasty.

The next morning, of course, I wanted to check things out.

 

The wind was still pretty fierce, kicking up little funnels every few minutes. You could see the snow being blown off of roofs and the snow drifts being sculpted by the wind.

Everywhere people were starting to dig out and shovel. Here’s one unfortunate/silly soul who must have been trying to drive through close to two feet of virgin snow!

That would be one heck of a cold ride…

The drifts reached three or more feet in places!

I don’t think lemonade will be available for awhile yet…

I hope you are nice and cozy and haven’t had to do too much shoveling! Happy New Year tomorrow!

Fall Time is a Pretty Time

Autumn came really late to New York City this year. I remember last year I made time to go on at least one photowalk in Central Park to get the pretty leaves and colors. This year it all kind of happened so fast, and though I was really eager to go find nice foliage in a park, it never happened. It’s been a really busy month for me. However, I did take a couple walks around my neighborhood to enjoy a bit of color and some beautiful light.

Lightning Crashes

Atlantic Antic 2010

Every year in late September, a huge street fair takes over ten blocks of Atlantic Avenue in downtown Brooklyn. Up to a million people attend! There are musical acts, restaurant fronts serving specials, beer gardens, regular street food like funnel cake, historic buses from the Transit Museum, booths from local businesses, and more, but mostly, lots and lots of people!