New York City 2015

This time around in New York City, I was going to focus mainly on the people. On my first trip to New York I was overwhelmed by the towering skyscrapers and parks and neighborhoods and I didn't really take many portraits. Two years later, I had already realized that travel (or landscape) photos are almost always more interesting with people in them... 

Very early in this four-day stay I had purchased a new 50 mm lens, this time at f/1.4 (refurbished or used I don't remember). That didn't seem like much of a step up from my older f/1.8 lens, on paper at least, but in reality, the quality gap was pretty big. This new lens gave stunning results, and could be opened up to f/2 before getting soft. My old $100 lens could barely stay sharp at 2.8, and at those apertures, every stop counts. I was also carrying around my trusty 105 macro and the Tokina 11-16 ultra-wide, a DX lens that's also FX "compatible" so that zoomed-in the dark corners were pretty small and could easily be cropped out. That's what you get for going to full-frame before having enough money to buy a full set of new lenses. 

Ohio State

So, here's the real object of my trip. Ohio State University at Columbus Ohio.
I came here for two weeks for a collaboration meeting and some one-on-one time with the students here. So, yeah, I was doing physics for two weeks, and only a little partying photography on the side.

Although I did compress a lot of time spent and a couple of things outside of school that I got to photograph. All that and more, after the jump.

NYC: Downtown and Union Square

After taking a stroll through Brooklyn bridge park, I had come back to downtown Manhattan. The day was looking like it would clear up, and I still had many hours to go.

So street photography. Again. Quite a bit of architectural shots, too.

The shot on the left is city hall (I think). It was quite impressive.

I had walked north up to union square (about thirty blocks). There it was like paradise for finding interesting looking people to photograph.

But more on that below...

NYC: Grand Central

The first thing you notice when going into New York's Grand Central station is how enormous it all is. Enormous and actually a lot darker than you'd think. I had no tripod. I had been unprepared.

I actually had really high expectations from this location. Like Times Square, I thought I would manage to get something different from what is probably one of the most iconic photo spots in the universe.

I didn't have a tripod and I didn't have enough time to make something outstanding, but that just leaves me wanting to come back for another go. I still got some nice, decent shots out of what was starting out as a fairly bad day for photography.

Timna & Eilat

 I don't always take my tripod on trips with my friends, but when I do, I make sure to take some nightshots.

Going to the desert near Eilat sounded like an awesome opportunity to shoot star trails. The clear air, the cloudless weather, and there are no city lights close enough to outshine the stars. There was, unfortunately, another light source I hadn't considered... The moon was full and it was up that night, which lights up the desert like the sun when you try to take long exposures. 

The desert does have some interesting colors on a full moon night, but I can't say it was worth carrying the tripod in my pack all that time. 

Anyway, some images from the trip and from Eilat, after the jump...

Road Trip

It were a crazy couple of weeks. Lots of work to be done (I actually need to do some research at some point) as well as finishing up with the wintershoot took so much effort from me.

I happened to be travelling by buses a few weeks ago and just now I had the time to edit these images. Hopefully in a week or two I will be through with the backlog of images and be ready for new projects...

Look back: South America

It has been exactly five years since I came back from my trip around South America. Argentina, Chile, Bolivia and Peru, with a dash of Ecuador's amazing Galapagos islands.

It took me this long to find the time to organize, label, and edit my favorite images. Most of the time I had more important things to do than sit on Lightroom and edit photos from ages ago. I mean, I usually had more recent photos to edit so the backlog just kept getting bigger.

Considering that my trip to Nepal was two and a half months and took four months to edit, this seven month trip, edited on the back burner for five years isn't such a shock.