2010 Jan 23: The day I walked all the way home from Wall Street
Doing absurd amounts of walking for no apparent reason is something not uncommon for me. Case in point: The Great Saunter of 2009, aka a 32-mile walk around the entire perimeter of Manhattan, which I willingly participated in, just for kicks. For me, walking is win-win: not only do I get to frolic around unfamiliar grounds, but it’s also great exercise. Exploring + being healthy? Hollerrrrrrrr!
No, but really – I do walk a lot. Sometimes I’ll set out, not planning on going anywhere in particular, and before I know it I’m either at a bridge or on the other side of town, totally unplanned. Much like today, where I met someone near Wall Street (downtown Manhattan) and wandered uptown, through the Financial District, Chinatown, and the Lower East Side. Once I found myself nearing the Williamsburg Bridge, I knew I was going to keep walking and cross it to Brooklyn. And then by that point, I’m only about a half hour’s walk from my apartment in Greenpoint so I figured I might as well just walk all the way home. Whoops!
For this particular excursion, I had a 3lb lens around my neck (the 70-200mm). I had a goal of trying to ‘expose to the right‘ (of the histogram) in all my shots, which I’ve heard actually captures more color data in the image despite the overexposure. You can make adjustments in Lightroom afterwards to bring the image back to proper exposure. I’m really pleased with the results. I used to have a tendency to underexpose my shots and for awhile this was sort of my trademark; however, I feel like everything about my photography has evolved over the past 6 months as I’ve learned more about my craft. These days, I’m less about dark, contrasty, HDR images and more interested in letting the light enhance my shots.
I was walking across the bridge, spacing out, rocking out to the ipod, etc etc… and then out of nowhere, this guy jumps onto the railing and starts hanging out there. He didn’t look very comfortable!
Walking around in public with the 70-200 f/2.8L is a challenge. Does it stop feeling like you stick out like a sore thumb? When my family went to New York when I was in grade school, we certainly went through Chinatown, but I don’t remember anything about it.
haha i feel the same way! in some parts of NYC i’m not so open with carrying a huge lens, but i’m probably more trusting than i should be. i see plenty of folks with the big white lens on my explorations through the city, so at least i’m not the only one. the main thing is it feels so heavy after awhile!