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!

Awkward Positions

While taking pictures for the assignments, I started noticing details in the ordinary objects that surround us. They become special and beautiful when you look at them through a different eye than then one you have through your everyday fast routine. But not only that, to capture these objects and details through that different eye, you usually had to capture them from a different position, and generally very awkward positions. A great example: the New York subway. Of course I took these on quiet weekend days. Can you imagine taking these during rush hour with all those friendly MTA riders that yell at you when you are not moving fast enough?

How Should I Start?

Mmm, good question: which pictures should I post first? In the welcoming post, I told you that I like pictures with that warm afternoon light, so today let's post something a little bit different.
As you know, I always liked photography, but was not doing much about it. My mother gave me her Canon AE-1 several years ago, but I didn't really know how to use the manual mode. Then the digital cameras appeared, and I got a regular Sony point and shoot, but always wanted a reflex one. Luckily, for the 2007 Christmas, my husband got me a Nikon D-40. I started playing with it, but of course I was not getting the best out of the camera. So, some months after, I signed up for an "Introduction to Photography" class at PhotoManhattan. What a great decision! Over 9 Saturdays, they taught me the basics of photography. The entire course is with black and white photography, and you go over exposure, composition, depth of field, etc. And for every class you had an assignment and the following week you would share the pictures with the instructor and the rest of the class.
Here are some pictures taken throughout those weeks.

Welcome, Bienvenido, Bienvenue, Wilkommen!

Dear reader,
Welcome to my new project! 
I have loved Photography, or better said, photographs, for many years, since my childhood. I have a very clear memory of my mother taking pictures with her Canon AE-1 (if I'm not mistaken, she bought it with one of her first salaries) and then showing me how to use it, I must have been 4 or 5 years old. It was a beautiful Spring afternoon, Sunday Easter actually, and we had spent it at some friend's house in the Swiss country side (we were living in Switzerland at that time, but I'll tell you about that in some other post). I was the only kid there, but they had taken me for bike ride, then had organized an Easter egg hunt, and afterwards we rested in the terrace. That's when that glorious warm afternoon sunlight started appearing, and my mother took some pictures and showed me how to look through the lens. I don't remember exactly how those pictures looked like, but I can certainly remember that warm, and sometimes melancholic, feeling. I wish I could post those pictures, but they are at my parent's house, which is quite far from where I am now. Next time I visit them, I will definitely look for those pictures.
In the meantime, I'll post these pictures taken 6 years ago in Trinidad, Cuba. They were taken with a Fujifilm point-and-shoot and were not photoshopped.

What is then this blog about? I basically want to share my love for photography and will post pictures I have taken through the years, share websites that I find interesting, but will probably also include other things. Oh, and I look forward to your critiques, and comments on which picture you like or dislike.
Note that I'm a very amateur photographer, having taken my first (and unfortunately only, so far) photography class 2 years ago. Also, I'm currently not doing much photoshop. I know I should, but have not yet found the time to get it and learn how to use it.


Let's see where this project takes us. I hope that you'll enjoy it as much as I do!