The top of the Empire State Building surrounded by soft, puffy clouds. I kept the color palette muted to emphasize the simple, delicate nature of the summer scene.  Photographed with the Nikon D800 and Nikon 24-120mm f/4 zoom.

Currency exchange sign with blurred city lights reflected in the window.

This extreme close-up of a 1 Euro coin was taken with a Canon T2i and the Canon MP-E 65mm macro lens set up to produce a 3x enlargement.

I am continuing to work on some background stock images.  This one is of binary digits superimposed upon a photo of blurred lights.

The cloud formations have been very interesting for stock photography lately.  The photo above of puffy white clouds is a panorama combination of two images.  I composed it to leave the neutral blue area on the upper right as an area for designers to put type.

These images were photographed in the studio but the writing and map were added later in Photoshop.

Last night I went out and photographed the lights of Times Square completely out of focus so I could use the photos in combination with other subjects.  Here is one early example done by combining a blur with a stop watch.  The blur photos were taken with the Nikon D800 and 80-400mm zoomed out and used wide open and with the focus set for its closest mark.  I left the white area above the watch clear so a designer could use it to place type.

Summer arrived in the New York  This morning I came upon this little guy trying to keep cool as a record heat wave passes through the city.  I composed the image so the oval shape of the foreground water ripples echoed the background grating, and the pool of water picked up the green reflections from nearby trees.  Photographed with the Nikon D800 and 70-300mm zoom lens.

Here are a few images I just worked on for my art portfolio.

This is the blueberry pie my daughter, Jamie, made me for Father's Day.  This is how it looked on Jamie's blog as it was being made: a life of whimsy.

This is the same pie shortly after I brought it into the studio the next day.

Except for the blue background, this entire image was created in Photoshop.

I am working on a series of "red carpet" concepts.  Here are two I just completed.  I start by photographing the carpet on white seamless in the studio and adding effects later in Photoshop.  For the image above, one stanchion was photographed from the right and left side, and repeated to create the lineup.

I used the spotlight render tool in Photoshop to create the lighting effect for this concept of rolling out the red carpet.

I am working on some images that reflect the concept of vision.  This one is made up of two photos, one of the blur background, and the other a studio shot of the woman's eye.  The beam and lens were created in Photoshop.

When we have a model in the studio for a shoot, we usually take a little time out to photograph them on a white seamless background so we can combine their image later with other model photos we have in the same pose.  In this case we were working towards creating a group of people standing in line.  Each person was photographed separately as were the stanchions.  The group was then assembled in Photoshop.

Another abstraction in my sidewalk series taken with the Fuji X-Pro1.

Over the past few days we have had thunderstorms passing through New York that have resulted in a variety of dramatic cloud formations.  Here are a few I captured just yesterday.  The lone, puffy cloud above was a precursor and an interesting contrast to the large thunderheads below that arrived later in the day.

Today we did an all day studio session with two models.  The ability of the models to deliver a full range of expressions in any situation combined with the excellent styling and color coordination of our studio stylist, Janet, resulted in a real winner of a stock shoot.  Here are only a few of the hundred or so resulting images from the day.

The day after the party.  One more year gone by.

Birthday

It's my birthday today so I thought I'd do some stock shots on a birthday theme. 

This one is Happy Birthday with a New York theme.  Photographed this morning with a Nikon D800 and 60mm macro lens.

...and here are a few more birthday shots for good measure!

This keyboard came with a new computer I ordered and I thought I would photograph it while it was still new.  So I reeled it though several concepts by combining it with a variety of props.  Taken with the Nikon D4.  The wide angle effect was achieved with the Nikon 24-70mm lens fit with a 2-diopter close up filter.

The importance of clouds

While photographing in England recently, I befriended a couple who were serious about photography and asked me for some help on getting the most from a travel subject.  One thing I pointed out to them was that while there were literally thousands of tourists a day passing by the same spot where they were standing, the only thing that changed daily was the weather.  I showed them that by incorporating the weather into their photographs, they could make the images particularly their own.  This is especially true of interesting cloud formations.  Here is a blog post I did on my Learn Photography blog site that illustrates this point more in detail.

Yesterday evening in New York I was treated to these interesting, multi-layered cloud formations that reminded me of this story.

Today I continued photographing for my book project, "Looking Up at New York".  This building on 12th Street is one of my favorites in all of New York.  It is the New School for Social Service designed by Joseph Urban and built in 1931.  It has a very Bauhaus, Art Deco look to it with the lateral brick work stripes.  In the 1930's this became home to the "intellegentia" who were fleeing the Nazis in the prelude to WWII.

The building faces north on a very narrow street and is enclosed by trees making it very difficult to photograph.  I had taken many photos in the past, but went back again with the Nikon D800 because of its ability to deliver a full dynamic range in difficult circumstances.  I wasn't disappointed.  Even in the photo below the D800 was able to shoot directly into the late sun and still produce full detail in the building.

The weekend is here and I took some time off to work on an on-going book project I am doing called, "Looking Up at New York".  Today I concentrated on the NOHO Historic District, the area that is north of Houston Street and below 8th and centered around Broadway and Lafayette.  Most of these buildings were constructed in the late 1800's.

The number 3 was part of 1873 written across the building for the date this building was constructed.  It was originally the home of Brooks Brothers in New York. 

I always wonder what the architect would feel if he could see his beautiful facade covered over by the later, intrusive addition of a fire escape.

The Cable Building sits on the corner of Houston and Broadway.  Designed by McKim, Mead, & White and built in 1894 it originally housed a large power plant in its basement for the Broadway cable car line.

These ornate Corinthian columns represent four of nine original living quarters and are all that is left of what was once one of the weathiest living areas of New York.  It was called Colonade Row or LaGrange Terrace and originally stretched from 4th Street to Astor Place on Lafayette.  Built in 1833 and designed by Seth Geer it was home to the Delanos, Astors, and Vanderbilts.

I liked the way the bright red brick of this building at 20 Astor Place contrasted with the blue of the sky.

You can read all sorts of symbolic meaning into this juxtaposition of the ornate steeple of Grace Church and the plain brick siding and humble water tower of a neighboring building.  The clouds in the sky cooperated compositionally by echoing the shape of the steeple and tower.

Achieving a sunset look when photographing at mid-day

The other day I was playing around with a lighting technique I had come up with years ago to obtain the look of a sunset or late afternoon light while shooting in mid-day.  It was easier when I originally did it because I was using film, and the lenses were not as coated and resistant to flare as they are today.

I placed two large and very shiny reflectors behind the model to serve as a partial background and positioned them to pick up the hot mid-day sun, and reflect it past the model's face and directly into the camera lens

For the top photo I wanted the warm-colored, playful light of a summer sunset, whereas for the bottom image I wanted more of a desaturated tone to emphasize the serious, no-nonsense intensity of the athlete's stare.  A warm Photoshop filter gave the upper image its color, while the Vibrance control dialed down the color in the bottom photo.

For a further explanation of this technique, visit my learning blog.