69th St Transfer Bridge Revisited
Five years ago, Gabe and I had our first night out shooting NPy together at this location.
Two nights ago, I had the pleasure of revisiting this place with Erik Ward and Dan O'Neil, two guys who also met around five years ago and have been doing Urbex together ever since. Cool guys, very fun with which to shoot.
I must admit, one of my favorite NPy photographs I have ever shot was at this location and I was loathe to encroach on my personal enjoyment on its happy memory. But I approached it with an open mind to experiment and apply all that I have learned in the last five years. Great decision :)
Here is the image I hold dear from back then:
May, 2008
Mamiya 7, 43mm, f/16 @ 12 min
Ilford XP2 Super, 120
I remember Gabe shooting for much shorter times and wondering why I was exposing so long. I am not sure I knew what I was doing, but instinct told me to expose for 12 minutes. In hindsight, I knew I wanted the transfer bridge to stand out and since it was at least 3 stops darker than the correct exposure for the rest of the City, I let it burn...
This lesson has stuck with me over the years. Upon returning, I wanted to test the theory again and shot two different exposures just to see what happened:
March, 2013
D700, 14mm, f/13 @ 2 minutes
March, 2013
D700, 14mm, f/8 @ 2 minutes
I think they are both successful for different reasons. The former has the qualities of all the light sources and shadows. The latter is more of an artistic statement about the relationship between the foreground and the background.
Moving on... here are some more shots & experiments from the evening:
Night Paper #5: Rockaway Beach
This Wednesday past, on the full moon, Gabe, Sylvester, Mabel and I spent a brisk evening on the beach at Rockaway. Having previously seen Sylvester's panoramics from when he was volunteering, we decided that the beauty of the repeating shapes from the concrete supports for the now-missing boardwalk was of such beauty that we were simply compelled to make art in that scene. Of course, we got to see the continuing efforts to clean up and rebuild Rockaway on the way in, and seriously, it's still not good there. My heart goes out to those displaced, and I hope that they find housing soon, and perhaps their new homes.
On to the art. I decided to roll the dice and continue the Night Paper Series. Our brave soul, Sincerely Y Ours, came ready to bare all and dress in paper when the temperatures reached the freezing point.
Here are my two top favorites:
_MHP8422-Edit
_MHP8435-Edit
And one portrait I just couldn't resist taking:
_MHP8434-Edit
You can see a little more from this shoot here.