Changing Tide

Times change. Situations change. Plans change. That is my reality. As I sit down to write this, the news came through that Osama bin Laden has been killed. As people take to the streets in Times Square and the WTC, I wonder if I would have joined them had I still been living in my apartment adjacent to Ground Zero. Actually, I've been thinking about my former life in New York a lot lately. So much that I've been having second thoughts about staying in LA. I miss New York, it got under my skin.

I still have this feeling that I need to give LA a chance. So I've found a place to sublet until late July. I figure that should give me a better feel of what I want to do. The other benefit to subletting is being able to meet friends of my new roommates. In July I can decide if I want to stay in LA or head back to NYC.

A significant contributing factor could be a job I am applying for. Pulitzer Prize winning photographer Vincent Laforet posted three job openings on his blog. They are not studio jobs but rather blogging jobs but it is definitely somewhere I want to be. I watched his creativeLIVE workshop on transitioning from still photography to video and he seems like a pretty cool guy.

I'm sure he has hundreds, if not thousands, of applicants for these positions so I wanted to come up with something that would get me noticed enough to warrant an interview. So I spend all day today creating a graphic resume.

Click on this to see a larger version of my resume based on the Premiere Pro workspace layout.

I had an idea to use the Adobe CS5 video editing Premiere Pro workspace as the basis for my resume. Laforet was using the program in his workshop so I thought it might stand out for him. It took way longer than I thought to complete, but I'm thinking it will get me past the first round and maybe an interview.

So once I get back from Costa Rica, I'll live in LA for two months and then decided what to do from there. Vincent Laforet could definitely persuade me to stay. Wish me luck.

Central Park in Fall

One of the things I never really experienced much of, growing up in Arizona (besides snow) are the colors of fall. Throughout the city the leaves were changing but nowhere near as dense as Central Park for the fall colors. I decided to take a side trip through the park while coming back from an appointment on Central Park West.

Armed with my trusty iPhone, I entered the forest of Central Park to leave the sights and sounds of the city behind. Luckily, there were many paths to follow on my journey through the manicured wilderness. There are parts of the Park where you can completely detach yourself from the buildings and city noise.

I love the fact that the grass was still very green which offset the warm fall colors. The park was also fairly empty in this area in the early afternoon. I made use of my iPhone camera using the Pro HDR, TiltShiftGen and PS Express apps.

The colors were pretty spectacular and I couldn't resist enhancing them a bit. I also thought they were good images to put the photo edges on.

The last photo was HDR and enhanced with the vignette blur and, of course, some serious saturation. I almost pulled back a little on the saturation but I decided I like it over-saturated.

The Mad Hatter

Quite regularly, something happens to renew my love of living in New York. I don't dislike it most of the time, mind you, but sometimes I really love it.

Today was one of those days. I went to Highline Park today to shoot some brackets for a book project I am working on (more on that later). The clouds were rolling in with patches of sky in between. It makes for a more interesting picture when shooting for HDR. I was cursing the soft, textureless clouds in the New York sky but was determined to make the best of it.

I found a couple of good locations to shoot along the elevated park and shot four sets of brackets. I was nearing the end of the park and was getting ready to exit downstairs when I hear some bells. I went to investigate and saw this guy dressed in black with a top-hat playing a cello against a blue background. It's like I planned the shoot.

I asked him if I could shoot him and he said sure. He said his name was Rev. Aaron Jones. As soon as I pointed the camera at him he came alive. He played that cello like he was a rock star in Madison Square Garden. At first I worried that he was vamping it up too much but then I resisted my urge to control it and just started shooting.

It was in an enclosed area so there wasn't much light. I had my EF L 17-40mm lens which maxes out at 4.0. I went up to 400 ISO but on my Canon 20D I can't go any higher without getting significant noise. I decided to switch to my Zeiss 50mm at 2.8 with the exposure compensation at -1. I figured the Canon tends to make the exposures a little light and I needed enough shuuter speed. It was worth the risk of not being able to get the manual Zeiss lens in perfect focus.

As much as I love the blue background, I had to see how this one would turn out in B&W. Everything about the way this turned out was perfect. The light coming in from the side added some extra drama. I love color and I'm not sure what it is about B&W that makes people think a photograph is more artistic. Making a crappy photo B&W won't make it better, but a good photo might be better in B&W. What do you think?

The Rev. Aaron Jones started singing a song along with his minimalist cello playing. Once again, I think he performed as if one hundred eyes were on him. I just kept snapping pictures and enjoying the uninhibited performance as he ended with a flourish. I also posted one of the pictures on my Project: 90 Days site as my picture for today.

I haven't had a chance to go through the brackets I shot, yet. I was so excited about these shots I wanted to process them and post them. Stay tuned for the HDR images of the other Highline shots.