New York City subway romance

New York City as you know it, is always bustling with people - the tourists, the locals, the office peeps, the hipsters, the blue collared staff, the wall street guys, the cops. No matter where you go, you'll always bump into people.

However there are some folks who prefer peace and quiet over the hustle & bustle. For instance, the newly formed couples or the just-dating teens. Sometimes even you get this urge to get away from the crowd and commotion. Thats when, you really have to scout around looking for some private spots to get cosy with your loved ones.

Check out a smooth pacifying photo which captures this emotion. A couple just getting closer and strengthening their bond.

P.S : This was taken by me at the 42nd street Bryant Park subway station on one chilly night.

Taking pictures from a boat or ship - Photography

Taking photos from a boat or a ship can be extremely challenging.

Since the ship is always moving, you are moving as well. So it is extremely challenging to maintain a proper focus. Keeping the camera on a tripod reduces slight distortion but still since it's on an uneven surface, the resultant pictures are not so good i.e they are blurry and distorted.

Make sure the lens you're using has Vibration Reduction (VR) or Image stabilization. It reduces some blur and distortion from the pictures.

Try to use a grip hand strap instead of a neck strap for added stabilization. You can buy one online here from B& H Photo Video store in New York City.

I would recommend you experiment with the settings and try to master getting perfect photos. If you're in Manhattan, I'd suggest you take the free Staten Island Ferry and practice getting some pictures of the Manhattan skyline. First try during the day time and then try at night. However, it becomes extremely challenging to get pictures at night, due to low light conditions. I'll cover the low light condition scenario in another post for now.

Take a look at my very bad quality night time picture of the Manhattan skyline taken from a boat. You can imagine how challenging and difficult it is to get still shots from a ship. Observe the blurriness and distortion. This was taken during the 9-11 anniversary so you can see the 9-11 memorial lights.

Bokeh blur effect - Photography

Bokeh is an interesting blur effect in DSLR photography. Most users new to the DSLR photography are not aware of the terminology. As a matter of fact, I myself didn't know what bokeh was, until one day I accidentally shot a photo with an interesting blur effect. The photo looked nice with the blurred lights during the night. Honestly speaking, it just happened to me while experimenting with different settings of my Nikon. I was just randomly trying out different combinations in various modes.

What followed was a bit of a research on the internet and lots of googling :) I came across this very helpful tutorial which helped me recreate the previous camera settings for a bokeh. After a bit of practicing I do feel that although the steps to create a bokeh seem quite simple at the first glance, it is infact quite tricky under various situations.

When you try to click a bokeh under low light conditions, it can be a bit tricky. Another tricky and challenging situation would be to try to click a bokeh of a city skyline at night from a boat or ship. We will look into this scenario in another post.

For now, lets just focus a bit on the bokeh. Check out a sample photo below to get an idea:

Bokehs can be extremely pleasing to the eye in stylish portraits. You could also use them as backgrounds and overlay text on top of it to create flyers, posters etc. In my next post on Bokeh, I'll specify some generic steps for recreating the camera settings and also some photos.