Merry Christmas to All of You

'Tis the season...
 Imagine how beautiful it would be to have a Christmas tree decorated with these lights. Unfortunately they did not have small ones, but only big ones. Still, I wish I had bought one as a tree topper.

I love this season, people sending best wishes to all, kids trying to behave, families and friends getting together to celebrate, and cities putting out all their decorations to receive the message of love, peace and hope.

With the first light snow coming down over New York and freezing temperatures outside, I couldn't help but think about Kauai, the Hawaiian island where we spent a summer vacation. The island is truly magical, with rainbows popping every few minutes and incredible sunsets. Here is the start of several pictures taken there.

       

FYI, 50% off of Adobe Photoshop Elements 9 until November 30th

I usually don't do much digital editing to my pictures, but I wanted to give a try to the Adobe Photoshop Elements which is not as expensive. The other day I checked their site and noticed that you can download a trial version. Most importantly, I wanted to let you know that if you are interested, they have an offer of $50 off (instant and mail-in rebate) until November 30th, 2010! Here is the link http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshopel 


Here is example (sorry, not a very dramatic one), which one do you prefer? Unedited one is the first, edited one, the second.

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving!

Back to Black and White

For the introductory course that I took, you always had to shoot in B&W in order to really understand light. And at the end of the course, we had an exhibition. These are the ones I chose. You can view other exhibitions of Photo Manhattan under this link (old one and dates of upcoming ones). 

Autumn Colors

Temperatures have finally dropped in New York, what a pity, I really loved this late Indian summer. So, before we think it's winter instead of fall, here are some of those typical fall pictures and colors. All these were taken a few weeks ago in the Hudson region, New York. Which one do you like the most?

My friend Ale was also part of the trip and took lots of beautiful pictures, and posted some of them on her blog, Zestcatcher. You can see them through this link, but don't just check that post, look at all the other ones: photography, design, great recipes, etc!


This one was taken in 2004, in Lujan, Argentina, but unfortunately the resolution is quite low, not sure why. 

My Adored Empire

When I was taking the course, I lived in Midtown Manhattan with a direct view to the Empire State Building. It soon became an adored subject.

And my favorites. They are of course very similar, but I prefer the right one because with the blurry background it focuses more on the can, the left one has more noise. Which one do you prefer?

         

Speaking of the subway...

What a coincidence! This weekend, the New York Times published a special issue on the New York subway, it's under the NY region specials. The post from Ron Lieber, "Subway Door-Standers" is very funny. The printed version also included comments, most of them complaints actually, from subway riders. I'm sure that if you are an NYC subway rider, you will sympathize with several of them...


But that's not really what I wanted to share. They also put together a slide show, The Subway in Pictures, with pictures taken over the last 90 years. The subway, especially the New York subway, is such a magical place: it surprises you every day! I don't think there has been a single day (and I take the subway almost every day) where I am not amazed by somebody's look (in a good or bad way), laugh at somebody's comment, admire the diversity, listen to amazing music (although many times you are not lucky and the music is terrible), etc.  Some days, unfortunately, I have to get some work done or write personal emails, and so spend all my ride looking at my blackberry, but other days, I simply look around and imagine the pictures I would take if I had a camera with me.
Tonight, Halloween weekend, would have been such a great day to ride the subway, everybody with costumes, unfortunately I'm home sick! Although in New York you don't have to wait for Halloween to see people with costumes, like in picture 9 of the slide show. 
I would like to do a series like slide 10, but I will have to wait to have a smaller camera that I can carry around all the time. Which point and shoot camera would you recommend? I'm basically looking for a camera with fast shooting, manual exposure control and sturdy enough to be in my handbag... I was thinking about the Nikon Coolpix P7000, I have to go to the store to try it. Have any of you tried it?


For those of you who can go out tonight, enjoy your Halloween party!