A few of my friends and I have big, fancy cameras and no idea what to do with them, so we decided to start a photo excursion club and take periodic jaunts in photogenic locations to improve our skillz.
Well, Anthony,
Jeff,
and I have big, fancy cameras. Jack has an iPhone. But he’s really serious with that iPhone:
We started out in Battery Park, which is just in front of our office building and has the most incredible views of Brooklyn, New Jersey, Ellis Island, and of course, the Statue of Liberty:
Look! Look! She’s in the foreground and background! See how clever I am?
We took about a zillion photos of flowers and bees landing on them (Anthony even tried to demonstrate to us that you can grab a bee and let it go before it realizes what’s going on, but after a few attempts, I think I convinced him he was going to lose a hand), but naturally I didn’t have my shutter speed set fast enough and didn’t capture a single good-looking shot.
Jack did manage to find some slower-moving wildlife, though:
We creepily watched other people’s kids play in the Battery Park fountain,
and saw a woman who may or may not have been Sinead O’Connor wearing a superhero costume play a concert inside Castle Clinton until the sun began to set:
We had been planning to walk up the East side of Manhattan, but the promise of the smoggy Jersey City moonlight drew us West to Battery Park City and the lovely promenade that spans its length. We stopped to watch a blues concert on the water, and I thought about how wonderful it is to live in a city where something like that is going on every second of the day.
Of course, it’s also the kind of city that commissions poop-shaped sculptures for its parks, so maybe it’s a trade-off:
Passing a group of chess tables, we jeered Anthony into planking (or “lying down game”, as Wikipedia calls it):
and then hilariously looked not ten feet away to see another dude copying him.
After that, Jack lost to himself in a sad game of imaginary chess, which I took a picture of:
and Anthony took a picture of:
and Jeff took a picture of (while accidentally using his color picker function, rendering about half of the photos he took black, white, and blue):
To show that he was more important than we are, Anthony pretended to assume professional photo-taking postures but was really just using them as an excuse to air out his crotch:
The sky went from blue
to black before we knew it
and we apropos-ly ended our photo expedition at the in-progress 9/11 memorial. Freedom Tower, as it was known. Or One World Trade, as we fondly call it:
We passed finance types lounging drunkenly at crowded outdoor cafes, collars unbuttoned and sleeves rolled up, and headed somewhere a little more our style:
Because as Jeff’s photos show, clearly we don’t know how to handle ourselves in public:
22 Comments
iPhone?? I don’t own a bloody iPhone!!
Sorry, I have a pet peeve of people calling all MP3 players “iPods” and all smartphones “iPhones”. Apple’s not the only company out there darn it.
Sorry, let me just go make a photocopy of this comment on our copy machine for future reference and get you a facial tissue and an adhesive bandage to heal that hurt.
hotdogsconcretesfloats?
What’s a concrete?
I assume you’ve never been to Culvers then.
MMMM…butter burgers and concrete mixers!
Neither have I, although I know there’s one very near Tracey’s house. Do the burgers actually have butter on them, or is it just a buttered bun? Because that might mean the difference between going to Max & Erma’s next time I’m home and going to Culver’s.
I believe that the butter is only on the bun…but it is still something you need to have. If you call me next time you are in town, I can treat, you know, to make up for my mean comment about the lady bug photo.
Ha, I hope you know I wasn’t really offended. I secretly liked it best, too. I still might take you up on that burger offer, though.
It’s a milkshake. But really, really, really thick. But not as thick as ice cream. So I guess more like just really, really thick. And also full of stuff. Mine had macerated strawberries and brown butter streusel.
!!!
I was enjoying this post until I got to the the part about visiting the most overrated fast-food chain in the city. Boo!
I meeeeeeeean . . . I’m annoyed that everyone likes it so much, too. But I still don’t think it’s overrated. Just overpriced.
Okay, so when we visited NYC last year, we did not make it to the Statue of Liberty. We never saw her. And Kevin, Connor and I all regret it. It may be one of the only regrets that Connor actually has, and I assure you that he feels it acutely. I know we will be coming back to see it someday soon, and when we do, you can come take pictures with us. And help us find the darn thing since we managed to miss it the first time.
Oh, and the lady bug picture was my favorite.
“Out of all of these pictures you took, my favourite is the one your roommate actually took” is the meanest comment ever! I’m going to go troll your blog so hard now.
The idea that Connor is still dealing with the issue of missing the Statue is somehow endlessly hilarious to me. If you were down at the end of the island at all, you probably saw her and didn’t even realize it! The NYC skies are, uh, not known for being the clearest, though.
Shit. Sorry.
Love the photos, especially the one of the lamp post… and is that a clock tower?
Thanks! You know, that clock tower has been right outside of my office for five years now, and I really can’t remember ever noticing it until that day. It’s part of this dilapidated old pier that they’re apparently trying to revitalize; it’s now covered in tarps that have giant pictures of how it used to look, with F. Scott Fitzgerald quotes and all. It seems like such a white, upper-class thing to do to your construction projects.
Love this Katie! I feel like I was such a part of your outing, I’m now sweaty from the humidity and have a stain on my top from the ketchup which inadvertently leaked out of my burger. Which was delicious.. overrated chain or not. Thanks for buying!!
Oh, man, those burgers are so juicy the stuff actually runs down your arms if you’re not careful. And I’m always specifically not careful so someone has to lick me down later.
So that ring on Antony’s hand is fucking awesome.
Also, looks like you guys did a good job with the photos . . . but if you need someone take one of those fancy cameras off of you, I know plenty of things to do with one . . .
<3 <3
+h
Funny! I was really close to not using that picture of Anthony because I thought there were too many others and wanted to give Jack a shot, but I liked the ring in the picture so much that I had to use it.
Got any photography tips for me? Maybe a lens you can’t live without?
Want to visit NYC. Yesterday.
You guys held your own Photo Walk! That’s awesome!
In other news, I want a concrete.