The City That Never Sleeps

The city might not sleep, but the excitement was too much, and I needed to crash. I got bitten by the tourist bug in New York, though not quite a hard as I would have thought. In hindsight, I wish I’d had thought to get an app on my phone that would count my steps and measure the miles that we walked around the city. We pounded some serious pavement, or sidewalk if you will. But amidst my pregnant girlfriend’s moans about her swelling, aching feet and the foot massages that I provided, we thoroughly enjoyed the city and after a while I almost felt like I could breathe in the city its self as I experienced it becoming a part of me, and I it.

I wasn’t there on business, it was a holiday. I wore shorts and t-shirt, I got sunburnt in true British fashion and did those things that tourists do. But I’m not sure that I can pick a single experience as a highlight. Everything complimented something else, and memories were formed in extended time frames rather than instants.

Although I did sleep in the city that doesn’t, they weren’t early nights as such. There is something that completely transforms that city from day to night, other than the ambient light and the sudden increase in people trying to sell you items or tickets. You might have noticed that I’m quite the fan of night time photography, and it seems wandering the streets in this bustling metropolis ticked all my boxes.

The Rockerfeller Centre by night, just after we had visited the Top of the Rock attraction. That provided some amazing views. I’ll be writing a post just about that soon! I’ve linked it, but I’m not affiliated with it.

And what is the one thing that every New York film seems to show? I had to take more than a few obligatory, cliched NYC yellow cab shot. Though there’s lots of new shaped ones, I tried to only capture the classic ones.

I don’t think it will be the last I’ve seen of those streets. There’s so much left to experience that just isn’t possible in three nights.

Ready to Break Some Rules

Never work with kids or animals is something that’s always mentioned to amateur photographers when they’re starting out. It’s not something that I’d ever really intended on doing. The lack of control that you have over the subject does seem quite daunting.

But in bad boy fashion, rules are made to be broken.

I was asked by my girlfriend’s brother and fiancee to take some photos of their gorgeous, 12 week old cocker spaniel, Ivy.

Apprehensively, I accepted the challenge. 

I couldn’t believe how well trained Ivy was considering her age. She had mastered multiple commands. Sit, stay, paw, lie down and to walk a lap of her owners, although these were all suspiciously in the same order each time, I’d cottoned on to her game. In reality though, she is clearly still a puppy with oversized paws and long legs that she constantly tripped over which was so adorable and hilarious at the same time.

When I finally managed to release her razor sharp needle teeth from my camera strap or hand, I did manage to capture some images.

She is a right little poser.

 

 

 

Duncan

When I think of a name of a Royal Navy war ship, Duncan is not really the first name that pops into my mind. Even saying “Duncan the Destroyer”, makes it sound a little bit cooler, but it’s still just Duncan. Please, Duncans that may be reading my blog, take no offence, but your name is a touch on the boring side.

What am I on about?

We those of you that Like me on Facebook, may have noticed my posts about the NATO Summit that was held over the 4th and 5th of September in Newport, Wales, how well it was organised and how much of an exciting opportunity it was. Unfortunately, I was office bound for the majority of the duration and got to miss anything that was really exciting. Luckily for me I had some spare time in the evening to visit Cardiff Bay. One location that was crawling in police officers expecting protests which didn’t quite materialise.

What was more of interest was the brand new, super high tech, type 42 destroyer, HMS Duncan that was docked during the summit. In difficult lighting situations, after pushing through masses of people and talking to a few friendly police officers I managed to get a few shots of the ship in all it’s glory. Though I did manage to capture no sense of scale with these photos.

 

What’s slightly disappointing is that it’s sister ship, I’m led to believe, is called HMS Dragon. Now that’s not a name you would want to mess with!

 

These photos aren’t likely to hang on any walls, but It’s a nice reminder of the excitement that spread through South Wales during this rare, and exciting occasion. 

Word Filled Wednesday : Biting your tongue

I missed providing you with some photographic goodness on Saturday. The weather’s been horrible and I’ve been super busy with the stuff that pays the bills. It’s also been a lot longer since I wrote anything for Word Filled Wednesday.

Something ticked me off today, and I’m sure it has in the past, and I’m almost certain that I’ve written about it. But hey, people like to read peoples rant’s and correct peoples spllings, don’t they?

I just opened my Fisher Price my first DSLR; I’m a professional photographer.

I was browsing through my Facebook feed and there’s things that pop up that catch my attention and they sometimes frustrate me. Somebody started working as a Photographer. Excellent, my interest is piqued. I can’t help but look at the photos and am often disappointed. Any of my close friends will tell you that I am my own worst critic when reviewing my photos, and do not claim to be a professional photographer. I enjoy photography as a hobby, and at best would call myself an amateur photographer. But some of the people that put photos out there, that are claiming to be professional are just plain poor. And those that charge for the privilege of their time. How? Blame Facebook I hear you say? To be honest their photo compression methods leave a lot to be desired, but you can tell if you look beyond the JPEG artifacting, that some photos are jut plain terrible.

Don’t get me wrong Social media is about sharing, and I make it openly clear that I share my photos on my Facebook Page, Photos by Dan. (That’s a link, click it and like it.) I’m also not against people sharing something they have a passion for others that may be interested to see. But I’m not changing my job description just yet, and I don’t constantly flood my social feeds with my half baked photos in hope to win some popularity contest.

Im a model; look at this selfie I just took on the front facing camera of my smartphone.

There are other examples too. Somebody listed their job as a freelance model. It’s a job that exists, I accept that. It’s a hard game to get into I would imagine. But when you spam my feed with links to your modelling page, which I invariably check out and can see little more than some poor quality selfies with some Instagram (look another link, follow follow!) filters applied, or photos that your mate took of you in the bathroom on a night out with a little bit of cleavage on show. It just frustrates me. Not a single photograph that would make me want to hire you as a model.

If you are promoting yourself as a business, please make it worth it!

Let me know what you think. Do you feel the same or am I way off the mark?

But in other, more positive news, my tomatoes have started ripening so I’m really looking forward to tasting them and WordPress has had a bit of a layout change which I quite like from first viewing.