2013 Project 52 Review

[In which I talk a ton about myself. You've been warned.]

I completed my 2013 Project 52 on December 30, when I snapped the last photo entitled, "Man on Steel." Or maybe I completed it when I posted the photo to the blog on January 1. Either way, by that date I had taken and shared my 52nd photo and 45th accompanying blog post describing the photo and thought process. Doing this project has resulted in something of a personal time capsule for 2013, which is both unique and memorable for me. I'm truly surprised and also quite proud to have completed the Project, as it had bested me when I attempted it a few years ago.

I've now had a month since the last selected photo and blog post for reflection on the Project as a whole and the photos as individual images, which has produced a number of observations (self evaluations) and a few ideas for what to pursue going forward.

==

2013 Project 52, Week 52: Man on Steel

Week 52: December 24-31 
(tacking on the last day of the year to this week.)

In the midst of the end of year crunch these past two weeks, my lunch break has been an opportunity for me to slip out of the office for some fresh air and a chance to clear my head with camera in hand. I take a stroll around the block either to or about Bryant Park and the surrounding streets and just try to keep my eyes open. It's felt a little bit to me like I've "seen all there is to see" around these same few blocks, as I've trudged around the same trek for the past year now, whenever I've been in need of a breather; but I also recognize the ridiculousness of that idea: that I could really have "caught" everything there was to "catch" and "seen" everything there was to behold. No, even retracing the same steps from a day or even half day or hour before could and should yield different things to see in this City of Perpetual Motion. In a way, I think shuffling about the same paths all the time is a simple exercise in keeping my eyes sharp, looking out for "decisive moments" at which to spring into action.

This shot came at the end of one of my lunchtime strolls. They're constructing a shiny new tower across the street from my office building on the southwest corner of Bryant Park. I glanced up to see a few guys up on the steel beams, and my head exploded because I thought it was a really neat sight (and I had already put my camera away). So I pulled the camera back out and snapped a few. I think the guy saw me and even waved at one point.

As a testament to the new camera, I should note that this photo was taken at 35mm (or 52mm on a normal full frame). This is heavily cropped. 24 megapixels is laughably overmuch, but in this particular instance, it is amazing. I know it's not recommended to take photos and then crop like mad, but it was what I had to work with, and I really like how this came out.

35mm (DX) : ISO 360 : f/4 : 1/60s
Man on Steel

In other news, I can hardly believe I've made it to the end! I will do a wrap-up post later on.

2013 Project 52 entries:

Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6 | Week 7 | 

Week 8 | Week 9 |  Weeks 10-13 | Week 14 | Week 15 | Week 16 | 

Week 17 | Week 18 | Week 19 | Week 20 | Week 21 | Week 22 | 

Week 23 | Week 24 | Weeks 25-27 | Week 28 | Week 29 | Week 30 | 

Week 31 | Week 32 | Week 33 | Week 34 | Week 35 | Weeks 36-37 | 

Week 38 | Weeks 39-40 | Week 41 | Week 42 | Week 43 | Week 44 | 

Week 45 | Week 46 | Week 47 | Week 48 | Week 49 | Week 50 | 

Week 51 | 

2013 Project 51, Week 52: Christmas at Lincoln Center

Week 51: December 17-23

"Christmas in New York" holds a kind of mystical place in culture, I think; but for us, Christmases in New York have largely been spent with me at home and Sharon at the hospital.  This year, as with Thanksgiving, Sharon actually managed to have the day off, which was nice.

We had a pancake dinner for Christmas Eve, a tradition cribbed from the Pierce family, and we exchanged presents with each other sometime before Christmas and Christmas Eve since we are basically twelve years old and cannot wait until Christmas Day, a tradition started by the New York Tsay family. We really need to get better at that before we ever have kids. Or not.

With Sharon on a rotation that more or less allowed for free evenings, we had taken a few of the nights this particular week and weekend to get out of the house. This week's entry is of the plaza at Lincoln Center: I can hardly pass up a chance to shoot silhouettes. I played around with the cropped composition in post; the original showed the entire front of the Met Opera building, but I'm trying to teach myself to compose creatively. It's all so stiff to me, for now.

20mm (DX) : ISO 1600 : f/5.6 : 1/30s
Lincoln Center Christmas Tree!

Other excursions this week: we visited the Brooklyn Bazaar. This year's Bazaar seemed to be a bit smaller and more compact than last year's sprawling affair.

So Bazaar

 We also took advantage of the free admission at MoMA on Fridays to visit the famous museum. Sharon has a killer photo from this staircase that I will badger her for until she posts somewhere; until then, this is my contribution. These two sentences contribute nothing to the incredible experience that is the MoMA. If you're in town on a Friday night and like art, you should consider visiting between 4-8pm.

MoMA

2013 Project 52 entries:

Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6 | Week 7 | 

Week 8 | Week 9 |  Weeks 10-13 | Week 14 | Week 15 | Week 16 | 

Week 17 | Week 18 | Week 19 | Week 20 | Week 21 | Week 22 | 

Week 23 | Week 24 | Weeks 25-27 | Week 28 | Week 29 | Week 30 | 

Week 31 | Week 32 | Week 33 | Week 34 | Week 35 | Weeks 36-37 | 

Week 38 | Weeks 39-40 | Week 41 | Week 42 | Week 43 | Week 44 | 

Week 45 | Week 46 | Week 47 | Week 48 | Week 49 | Week 50 | 

2013 Project 52, Week 50: Snow

Week 50: December 10-16

It's incredible to me that I've made it so far this year on this project and that I'm now staring at Week 5-0. I'm a little behind due to the holidays, but I have not missed the week.

The week saw bitterly cold days just before an inexplicable few days of summer weather. One Saturday saw very heavy snow, which we made us determined to get out to the Park. Snow in New York (well, speaking for Manhattan) is really only any fun if you play in it in Central Park. 

It was a very wet snow falling that day. I don't have any rain covers or anythingfor my gear, so I Macguyvered a plastic baggy with a rubber band over my D40 and lens and hoped for the best. As far as I can tell they both made it out just fine.

After looking through my photos I'm realizing that I've been kind of crazy about the trees this winter. I love the leafless look. Maybe it's the strong lines the arms and branches create. I'm not sure I really know what to do with them from a composition standpoint. But it really, reliably draws my attention.

18mm (DX) : ISO 800 : f/8 : 1/60s
Upper West Side Central Park Snow

2013 Project 52 entries:

Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6 | Week 7 | 

Week 8 | Week 9 |  Weeks 10-13 | Week 14 | Week 15 | Week 16 | 

Week 17 | Week 18 | Week 19 | Week 20 | Week 21 | Week 22 | 

Week 23 | Week 24 | Weeks 25-27 | Week 28 | Week 29 | Week 30 | 

Week 31 | Week 32 | Week 33 | Week 34 | Week 35 | Weeks 36-37 | 

Week 38 | Weeks 39-40 | Week 41 | Week 42 | Week 43 | Week 44 | 

Week 45 | Week 46 | Week 47 | Week 48 | Week 49 | 

2013 Project 52, Week 49: Getting in the Christmas Spirit

Week 49: December 3-9

It feels as if Winter arrived suddenly and ferociously here in New York this year. But along with the biting wind and cold temperatures came the inevitable "holiday spirit" (or hyper-consumerist buildup, if you prefer). Sharon and I ventured out to fight the crowds at Rockefeller Plaza and see the famous lighted Rockefeller Christmas Tree. You can't tell in these photos, but it was snowing rather heartily during our visit.

I've thought intermittently about the types of photography that I want to try to practice and improve upon. I don't know if this qualifies as a "landscape" (or perhaps you might call this a "cityscape"?), but it's one type or genre for which I'm trying both to sharpen my eye for recognition as well as to keep looking out for more unique shots. I picked this photo because it seemed like it might be a little out of the ordinary from the same vantages (either up close and at an extreme angle, or pulled far back) of the Christmas tree in the middle of Rockefeller Center. I like the convergence of the buildings of the plaza stacked upon the lighted tree branches. It's a subtler Christmas photo at Rockefeller Center, maybe?

10mm (DX) : ISO 1600 : f/4.5 : 1/80s
30 Rock Christmas Scene

The crowd at 30 Rock

2013 Project 52 entries:

Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6 | Week 7 | 

Week 8 | Week 9 |  Weeks 10-13 | Week 14 | Week 15 | Week 16 | 

Week 17 | Week 18 | Week 19 | Week 20 | Week 21 | Week 22 | 

Week 23 | Week 24 | Weeks 25-27 | Week 28 | Week 29 | Week 30 | 

Week 31 | Week 32 | Week 33 | Week 34 | Week 35 | Weeks 36-37 | 

Week 38 | Weeks 39-40 | Week 41 | Week 42 | Week 43 | Week 44 | 

Week 45 | Week 46 | Week 47 | Week 48 | 

2013 Project 52, Week 48: Thanksgiving Travel Extravaganza!

Week 48: November 26 - December 2

2013 was the first year since we've been in New York that both Sharon and I have had the Thanksgiving holiday entirely off and free. So what did we do with all of this free time? We flew from New York to Atlanta to Nashville and back.

We spent a few days in Atlanta with my parents and brother, eating my mom's delicious cooking and then hiking the trail up Kennesaw Mountain (a strange thing to do on Thanksgiving, I guess, but a marked improvement from some previous Tsay family Thanksgivings I can remember, like dining at such fine culinary institutions as Golden Corral).

Happy Thanksgiving!

"I can't believe we hiked all the way up here for Thanksgiving!"

I'm collecting photos of me taking photos of Sharon looking at me through lenses.

Major discovery of the holiday: pomegranates!

The day after Thanksgiving, we departed from Atlanta and drove to a cabin two hours outside of Nashville to meet up with the Pierce clan at Land Between the Lakes in Kentucky. Having lived in the bustling city for the last few years, staying in the quiet cabin in the countryside was really a stark change. We're so used to the massive light pollution around our city habitat that the sheer darkness of the woods and night sky was actually kind of breathtaking. We took the opportunity to try my hand at some star photography:

I don't know constellations. I'm sure they're there?

The lake itself is such a gorgeous locale. The cabin, seated up a hill from Lake Kentucky, had a dock down by the water, and we went each day to walk the Holladays' dogs and skip some stones.

Sometimes the week's Project entry takes some setting up and some doing. And then sometimes you just walk into it.

Holladays at the Lake

11mm (DX) : ISO 200 : f/8 : 1/40s
Pier on Kentucky Lake

It hardly needs to be said that the holidays are for family, and it was a real treat to get away from our normal busyness and see our beloved sisters and brothers and moms and dads. All the travel craziness worked out even better than if we had tried to plan it. We may not get a Thanksgiving holiday so available like this again, but future ones will have a high bar to follow. Hope you all had a restful and great Thanksgiving, too, dear readers.

2013 Project 52 entries:

Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6 | Week 7 | 

Week 8 | Week 9 |  Weeks 10-13 | Week 14 | Week 15 | Week 16 | 

Week 17 | Week 18 | Week 19 | Week 20 | Week 21 | Week 22 | 

Week 23 | Week 24 | Weeks 25-27 | Week 28 | Week 29 | Week 30 | 

Week 31 | Week 32 | Week 33 | Week 34 | Week 35 | Weeks 36-37 | 

Week 38 | Weeks 39-40 | Week 41 | Week 42 | Week 43 | Week 44 | 

Week 45 | Week 46 | Week 47 | 

2013 Project 52, Week 47: Night on the Upper West Side

Week 47: November 19-25

Short post.

Been going crazy lately with tripod long shutter night shots. Here are two from around Lincoln Center on the Upper West Side.

20mm (DX) : ISO 200 : f/22 : 10s
Upper West Side traffic

Apparently you aren't allowed to use a tripod at Lincoln Center. I fired off a few before a security guard asked me to put it away.

Lincoln Center

2013 Project 52 entries:

Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6 | Week 7 | 

Week 8 | Week 9 |  Weeks 10-13 | Week 14 | Week 15 | Week 16 | 

Week 17 | Week 18 | Week 19 | Week 20 | Week 21 | Week 22 | 

Week 23 | Week 24 | Weeks 25-27 | Week 28 | Week 29 | Week 30 | 

Week 31 | Week 32 | Week 33 | Week 34 | Week 35 | Weeks 36-37 | 

Week 38 | Weeks 39-40 | Week 41 | Week 42 | Week 43 | Week 44 | 

Week 45 | Week 46 | 

2013 Project 52, Week 46: Chinatown

Week 46: November 12-18

We spent last Saturday trundling about Chinatown. It's been tough to visit a culinary temptation such as Chinatown while trying to eat healthier- between all of the dim sum restaurants, noodle restaurants, bubble tea restaurants, bakeries, and candy stores... there's a lot of room to do damage.

We saw this delivery man resting on his bike as we stumbled out of the Vegetarian Dim Sum joint (four word review: it was just okay), playing his lotto card in front of the First Chinese Baptist Church.

14mm (DX) : ISO 800 : f/5 : 1/30s
Lotto Break

From lunch we walked over to Columbus Park on Mulberry St wedged in between both Chinatown and the New York City Criminal Courthouse (where I spent a good deal of time earlier this year serving on a grand jury) and people watched a bunch of old Chinese folks playing cards, Chinese chess, and off-key erhus in a cacophonous ensemble led by a loud wailing old dude.

Chinese chess

We've spent not nearly enough time in Chinatown during our time here. Between all the grocery stores and the aforementioned food options, there's so much more to explore. I've had a thought, ever since my grand jury days, that I haven't been exploring the photographic opportunities in Chinatown nearly enough, either. Will have to remedy both those going forward.

2013 Project 52 entries:

Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6 | Week 7 | 

Week 8 | Week 9 |  Weeks 10-13 | Week 14 | Week 15 | Week 16 | 

Week 17 | Week 18 | Week 19 | Week 20 | Week 21 | Week 22 | 

Week 23 | Week 24 | Weeks 25-27 | Week 28 | Week 29 | Week 30 | 

Week 31 | Week 32 | Week 33 | Week 34 | Week 35 | Weeks 36-37 | 

Week 38 | Weeks 39-40 | Week 41 | Week 42 | Week 43 | Week 44 | 

Week 45 | 

2013 Project 52, Week 45: Autumn Arrives in New York

Week 45: November 5-11

From one week to the next, I went from drought to surplus. Whereas the previous week I had but a few snaps of Millie in our living room window to pass for the weekly project entry, I had no fewer than five separate shoots to practice and to roll around in my mind for this week.

Sharon and I took a Saturday afternoon to stroll through our Central Park backyard and took in the arrival of autumnal colored leaves and their attendant allergens in action. Our visit to the Park was inspired by the annual Jazz and Colors jazz festival. We went from location to location to catch a menagerie of New York jazz groups all playing the same set all around Central Park. Our walk around the Park eventually brought us to the Mall, which is one of many of my favorite parts of the Park- it's an iconic view never wanting for the bustle of people and music and, this weekend, the splash of fall colors.

11.5mm (DX) : ISO 400 : f/8 : 1/125s
Autumn Stroll in Central Park

B&W Down the Mall

Honorable Mention
My other main photo project of the week comes courtesy of the end of Daylight Savings Time and the view down 6th Avenue (or, Avenue of the Americas to tourists) I see every evening around 5pm when I leave work. Once Daylight Savings ended and I began leaving the office when dark had settled in, I knew I had to haul my tripod with me to get a long-shutter photo of the Midtown evening glow.

Midtown evening glow: a 25-second exposure

It's a good week when I get and take more chances to make more photos. Indisputably. I miss it when I'm not out shooting, and when I'm out shooting, even if something frustrates me or I run into unexpected snafus or I end up somewhat bored with what I see, it's what I would rather be doing. It was a good week.

2013 Project 52 entries:

Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6 | Week 7 | 

Week 8 | Week 9 |  Weeks 10-13 | Week 14 | Week 15 | Week 16 | 

Week 17 | Week 18 | Week 19 | Week 20 | Week 21 | Week 22 | 

Week 23 | Week 24 | Weeks 25-27 | Week 28 | Week 29 | Week 30 | 

Week 31 | Week 32 | Week 33 | Week 34 | Week 35 | Weeks 36-37 | 

Week 38 | Weeks 39-40 | Week 41 | Week 42 | Week 43 | Week 44 | 

2013 Project 52, Week 44: Cats' closeups

Week 44: October 29 - November 4

There weren't a ton of plans for photos this week (well, I'd planned to go shoot photos at the NYC Marathon, but I never made it out of the house to pursue it; and just as well, it seems, since security was ramped up to crazy high levels).

I was fooling around with my equipment Sunday morning, specifically with my telephoto lens and my monopod. Sharon pointed out that the light coming from the window of the Cave was some of the nicest and brightest we could recall seeing in our year-and-five-months of living here; and Millie was glued to the window, watching for falling leaves and (I imagined) praying one of those leaves might turn into something she could eat.

105mm (DX) : ISO 800 : f/5.6 : 1/40s
Millie

Sharon distracted Millie to look in my direction while I fired off a number of shots. Funny, I had actually been thinking about practicing some portrait photography; while this wasn't exactly what I'd had in mind, it'll do. Of the many shots I took of Millie that morning, I think this one, with her weird and blank and dumb expression happens to be the best of the head-on shots I got with her eyes, not her nose, in sharp focus (And let me be clear: "weird" and "blank" and "dumb" are totally appropriate descriptors). This second one maybe looks a little more like her?

Looking out the window

[commence photography mumbo jumbo] This short shoot highlighted the struggle with shooting photos of pets, particularly those who move as frenetically as Millie tends to move. The light coming into the window, while lovely, wasn't enough to allow me to turn down my ISO, and it still required a fairly slow shutter speed; many otherwise usable shots were wasted due to motion blurring. I still had to stop down from the maximum f/2.8 aperture in the hopes of getting a good bit of her eyes in focus; perhaps in the future I could trade a faster shutter speed for a wider aperture and much thinner depth of field? [end photography mumbo jumbo]

Those concerns about shutter speed are less of an issue with Fuzz. (I'm kind of cheating with these photos of Fuzz; these were taken last December. But they're my favorite photos of her.) For these photos, I set my camera up on the tripod and took longer shutter captures of Fuzz. I worry less about motion blur with Fuzz, because, well... she doesn't do anything fast. You can't have motion blur if there's no motion in the first place...

Look at those big yellow eyes...

I have about a million photos of Fuzz that look something similar to this on my computer. As long as our dumb cats keep lounging around the house, I'll keep snapping away at them. (I love our cats. They can be dumb as bricks sometimes, but so help me: I do love them.)

Pet portraiture probably isn't in my future as a genre I'd seriously explore. But if you're interested in seeing more, our friend Stephanie (who actually shot our wedding) does pet photography, and she does it really well.

Upside down, because.

2013 Project 52 entries:

Wk 1 | Wk 2 | Wk 3 | Wk 4 | Wk 5 | Wk 6 | Wk 7 | 

Wk 8 | Wk 9 |  Wks 10-13 | Wk 14 | Wk 15 | Wk 16 | 

Wk 17 | Wk 18 | Wk 19 | Wk 20 | Wk 21 | Wk 22 | 

Wk 23 | Wk 24 | Wks 25-27 | Wk 28 | Wk 29 | Wk 30 | 

Wk 31 | Wk 32 | Wk 33 | Wk 34 | Wk 35 | Wks 36-37 | 

Wk 38 | Wks 39-40 | Wk 41 | Wk 42 | Wk 43 | 

2013 Project 52, Week 43: Midday in Midtown

Week 43: October 22-28

I'd spent the last week far behind on posting entries due to (1) staying up late to watch my Cardinals fall flat in the World Series against the Red Sox and (2) attending the 2013 PhotoPlus Expo held at the Javits Center.

This Monday, I set out on my lunch break without anything specific in mind except that I hadn't really done much shooting for Week 43. I thought I might foray into Times Square, that squalid den of tourists and creepy fake Muppets, for the first time in a while to see what photos I could create.

I found a few interesting sights (that I might revisit in a later post), but when I was returning to the office, I came across this man taking a smoke break in front of an art piece on Broadway; he was so oblivious to me that I spent a solid 180 seconds at minimum shooting and re-shooting him after I noticed his silhouette against the midday sun. I've heard that it's difficult to make photos when the sun is almost directly overhead, but it is good for making strong shadows for one to utilize. Tucked that one away for future reference...

14mm (DX) : ISO 200 : f/11 : 1/1250s
Smoke break

TKTS "amphitheater" in Times Square

2013 Project 52 entries:

Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6 | Week 7 | 

Week 8 | Week 9 |  Weeks 10-13 | Week 14 | Week 15 | Week 16 | 

Week 17 | Week 18 | Week 19 | Week 20 | Week 21 | Week 22 | 

Week 23 | Week 24 | Weeks 25-27 | Week 28 | Week 29 | Week 30 | 

Week 31 | Week 32 | Week 33 | Week 34 | Week 35 | Weeks 36-37 | 

Week 38 | Weeks 39-40 | Week 41 | Week 42 | 

2013 Project 52, Week 42: Staten Island Ferry

Week 42: October 15-21

On what seemed like a rare weekend day off for Sharon, we slipped downtown to check out Battery Park and to take the Staten Island Ferry. I'd been once before on the Ferry, but this was Sharon's first time to go.

I struggled with the lighting on this particular day, since the shadows were so strong inside the Ferry while the sun shone brightly outside. It was such a particular challenge that I'd like to go back on another day to tackle it again. I don't know if it's something that can only be handled by using an external flash. I also noticed, as we were making our approach back to Lower Manhattan, how idea of a shot of the Manhattan skyline I could have had had I acted quicker to switch lenses to my wider lens. So- two ideas for a future trip across the Harbor (for free! A perfect excursion for any tourist/visitor).

This is, I believe, Lady Liberty's inaugural appearance on the Project:

35mm (DX) : ISO 200 : f/7.1 : 1/400s
Passing by Lady Liberty

2013 Project 52 entries:

Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6 | Week 7 | 

Week 8 | Week 9 |  Weeks 10-13 | Week 14 | Week 15 | Week 16 | 

Week 17 | Week 18 | Week 19 | Week 20 | Week 21 | Week 22 | 

Week 23 | Week 24 | Weeks 25-27 | Week 28 | Week 29 | Week 30 | 

Week 31 | Week 32 | Week 33 | Week 34 | Week 35 | Weeks 36-37 | 

Week 38 | Weeks 39-40 | Week 41 | 

2013 Project 52, Week 41: Street Photoessay St. Paul/NYC

Week 41: October 8-14

I spent a little time in the past week reflecting on this photography project and on the minor miracle of my keeping up with the weekly entries up to this point. Doing something for 40 straight weeks does instill a bit of a routine and

So this past week I tried to make a more conscious effort to practice at finding street photography subjects. My entry for this week came from a work trip that took me to St. Paul, MN, for a few days. I noticed this bank of windows across the street from my hotel entrance one morning on my walk to the meeting location, and I returned to it later in the day to snap this shot.

35mm (DX) : ISO 200 : f/4 1/20s
St. Paul Self Portrait