#project365 [day 45] Walking south on central Park

Spring is trying to take hold on an almost frozen Central Park. Trees are mostly naked, grass is getting greener, the sun is shinning bright, but the cold is still here and the wintery feeling refuses to go away although it's almost April. Walking south, on the west side of the park, towards the Central Park Zoo, on the left you can see the buildings of the prestigious 5th Avenue.
Another in camera panorama, and I wanted to make use of that red bag that was being carried by the couple in front of me. The spot of bright colour in an otherwise pastel scene helps make it more interesting.

-- Gear
Fujifilm X-T1
Fujifilm XF18-135mmF3.5-5.6R LM OIS WR
-- Post
Lightroom : Initial toning and final crop
Photoshop: Sharpening and clean up
NikCollection Color Efex Pro 4: Toning and Detail extraction

#project365 [day 43] Reading in Central Park

Central Park is perfect for a lot of activities, high on that list is jogging or running, but on a sunny  wintery day reading seems like a very good option. I spotted her on top of a rock, and her blonde hair lit by the sun really stood out against the more pastel colours of the rest of the garden.
Using the long end of my default travel lens, the great XF18-135m by Fujifilm, I was able to isolate the subject although she was a bit far away. Later in post I decided to go with a panoramic crop, that would cut out unwanted dead space above and below her, and also give a more dynamic feeling to the image. And, although the original colours had their merit, it begged for a black and white conversion, which gives it a more nolstagic feel.

-- Gear
Fujifilm X-T1
Fujifilm XF18-135mmF3.5-5.6R LM OIS WR
-- Post
Lightroom : Tonal balance and image finishing
NikCollection Silver Efex Pro 4: Black and White conversion, and detail extraction

#project365 [day 42] New York Stock Exchange

Just off Wall Street, in Downtown Manhattan, you can find one of the world's top financial markets, the New York Stock Exchange. By contrast with Uptown and Midtown, the streets here are very narrow, more like the City in London. And contrasting with Soho and Tribeca, the buildings are extremely tall. This combination makes some of the streets almost devoid of sunlight for most of the day. Thankfully I was there just after lunch time, meaning that Broad Street was full of light. The building has been the home of the stock exchange since 1865 and has been designated a National Historic Landmark since 1978.

Again the fish-eye comes to the rescue, the combination of narrow streets and very tall buildings, makes this area complicated to capture. All the extra security around here, with sandbag walls, security houses, extra barriers, make for some very unattractive distractions which must be dealt with using some imagination.

-- Gear
Fujifilm X-PRO1
Samyang 8mm f2.8 Fisheye
-- Post
Lightroom : Initial toning and final crop
Photoshop: Sharpening, colour blending and clean up
NikCollection Color Efex Pro 4: Toning and Detail extraction

#project365 [day 35] Departments of Health, Hospitals and Sanitation

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In lower Manhattan there is an area dominated by public service buildings, in a few blocks you can find the City Hall, Tweed Courthouse, Court of International Trade, Supreme Court and the Department of Health, Hospitals and Sanitation.

Huge monolithic buildings, mostly made of stone and largely in the Art Deco style. This facade has a wonderful weathered stone and some very intricate metal detailing. I couldn't find any information on the building itself, would be interesting to find out who designed it and when it was built. 

-- Gear
Fujifilm X-T1
Fujifilm XF18-135mmF3.5-5.6R LM OIS WR
-- Post
Lightroom : Crop, tone and vignette
Photoshop: Sharpening and clean up
NikCollection Color Efex Pro 4: Toning and Detail extraction

#project365 [day 34] Going through book cards at NYPL

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Wandering inside the NYPL building, I found one of the small reading rooms actively being used for research. Looking through the cabinets full of book cards, one of the readers tries to find the right book. In an age of digital, where all information seems to be found at the click of a mouse, it seemed an action out of time. The Library seems to still be the guardian of old times, where a physical interaction was needed to be able to find what you wanted, and time had to be invested with delayed gratification.

Being an active reading room, I had to stay outside the door shooting through the glass, hence the reflections. But the action being capture seemed to outweigh the technical flaws of the image. Hope some agree... 

-- Gear
Fujifilm X-T1
Fujifilm XF18-135mmF3.5-5.6R LM OIS WR
-- Post
Lightroom : Initial toning and final crop
Photoshop: Sharpening and clean up
NikCollection Color Efex Pro 4: Toning and Detail extraction