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

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

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

#project365 [day 33] Madame Tussaud’s NYC

Midtown Manhattan, the chaos of the skyscrapers, crazy big adverts, neon lights, thousands of cars and even more people crowding the sidewalks and streets. In the middle of all that, a hand holds a sign over a building. A very big golden hand, that catches my eye in the middle of all the visual noise. It signals the building that houses the Madame Tussauds NY collection. I think about trying to isolate the hand from the rest, but end up deciding on including its surroundings, and show a bit of the sensory overload that is NY.

-- 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 32] Metal Rats of NYC’s Grand Central

On the canopy above the entrance to the Grand Central Station near the corner of 43rd St and Lexington Avenue are three cast metal rats just below the rat guards on the support rods. Evidently the architects (Sloan and Robertson) of the building had done prior buildings with a nautical theme; but I couldn’t find any explanation for their presence in this building.

A wonderful and enigmatic detail that most commuters, and tourists, pass under daily without noticing.

One of the great advantages of carrying a long zoom lens, 18-135mm [27-203] in my case, is that it allows me to capture small details that a standard zoom wouldn’t isolate. This has become my default lens when travelling and in most walkabouts around town, since these days the f5.6 max aperture doesn’t really hinder me that much.

-- 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