New York City Street Photography – Spring 2015

New York City has got to be one of the most incredible places in the world to practice Street Photography.  Rarely do I turn a corner without seeing something different, if you’re a curious person you could lose yourself in that city for years and years and still find your curiosity insatiable.

All of the shots you see here were taken with the Fujifilm X100T and the Nikon Df with the 50mm f/1.8G.

Entering the city from the ferry we caught a cab and I couldn’t help but photograph this guys angry eyes.

This time around the weather was more cooperative which means more people were out and about soaking up the warm sun (skin cancer be damned).  I love when the weather gets warm because people spend more time meandering around and I feel like you really get a glimpse of their life.

Originally, the mans yellow helmet caught my eye and I just like his posture on the barrier as well as the yellow cabs that matched his helmet.

I really wanted to capture something that said “New York City” and I think I got it.  Below is a shot I took as my fiancée and I were walking from the hotel to get something to eat, it’s a great example of good timing.  Every other time I visited this same spot I could never get this shot because there was always a car parked in the way…  For you to get this shot you had to be far enough away so the perspective looked as if the person passing by was wearing the Statue of Liberty.

This woman was on a mission, she was moving very quickly which is evident by the slight motion blur.

Speaking of the hotel, this shot (below) was taken from our hotel window (19 stories up).  There was some sort of festival going on and they shut the street down in front of the hotel.  Normally I wouldn’t think anything of this photograph but I just liked the way the light created two of everyone with their shadows.

This was the third of three different shots I took from the window…  This hotel allowed us to open the window by about 3 inches and I just barely squeezed my Fuji X100T outside (careful not to drop it on an unsuspecting subjects head) and snapped the shots.

I titled this shot “Little Man” because it looks as if the baby is thinking “I got this, let’s go!”.

Being fast with the camera was the theme of this trip, there were multiple times that had I not had my camera in the ready position I would have missed the shot.  My fiancée and I hurried past this duo to get this shot, the little boys face was priceless.

I could tell right away that this shot would be washed out by the bright light shining right into the X100T’s lens.  I figured it would look like those filters folks use that fade the photograph.  I was mostly satisfied, had I had more time I would have liked to center the subjects more.

We walked the High Line, an old train rail that was converted into a park (it’s about two stories up so it gives some great views of the city).  The High Line is free and I highly recommend checking it out if you have not already.  There are plenty of places for people to sit and ponder life while looking out over Chelsea and the Meat Packing District.

If I had a dime for every siren I heard in NYC I could have bought another camera after 8 hours.  This shot was taken near the hotel where they had shut the road down for the street fair.  I thought it looked neat with the lights in the background but I’d have liked to take this shot about 3 hours later when the sun had set so the lights would be brighter.

Walking through the street fair presented plenty of opportunities and I actually met another Street Photographer who was riding his skateboard around getting shots of people with his Olympus EM5, one of my favorite cameras from yesteryear.

Admittedly not what I was looking for…  I would have liked to opened my aperture and gotten closer to the guitarist but time was fleeting and this was what I came away with.

Heading in to the various markets proved an interesting experience.  One of the things I love about NYC is that rain or shine you can always find a place to use your camera.

The lighting was so low, the cameras capabilities were certainly being pushed to the breaking point.

I don’t know what I would do if my cameras weren’t able to shoot at ISO 6400.  Use a flash you say?  Nah, I love shooting with the available light.  The way natural light leaves shadows and preserves the natural state of things is something that attracted me to photography in the first place.  The second shot up, the man in the fun hat, would have lost a lot of the mood in his face had I used a fill flash.

Finally, another shot of the streets from our hotel room window.  I wanted to try a little light trail photography while we were in NYC but I ended up getting a cold towards the end of the trip and didn’t have the energy…  Luckily there was a road right outside of our hotel with plenty of traffic for at least one long exposure shot.

The photograph at the top was my absolute favorite from this last trip to NYC, everything seemed to come together for the split second I took this shot as I walked by.  The shadows, the geometry, and the people’s body positions in the shot all work together to make this shot work to me.  I feel like this is a shot I’d come across in a Street Photography book from the 1950’s.

I hope you enjoyed walking with me through the streets of New York City.  Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments below and head over to Flickr to join our Flickr Page.