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Archive for October, 2009

Chinese Scholar Garden

Saturday, October 24th, 2009

So last weekend I decided to go to Snug Harbor in Staten Island for a small photog excursion. It took about 2hrs to get there with weekend Subway Service and I still felt like this one day trip was definitely worth it. The weather was a bit wet but luckily the entire time I was there it only drizzled. I really recommend going there to see the Chinese Scholar Garden as that place is just beautiful.

I love Chinese architecture and it was just amazing to see it in person. I saw some pictures that were taken of the place and even though the pictures were great, none of them did the garden any justice. If you thought that there is nothing in Staten Island that is worth taking the ferry or paying tolls for, you are wrong!

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Open house New York 2009

Monday, October 12th, 2009

So last year I heard about Open House New York (OHNY) after the fact and I missed out a lot of tours. Since then I had booked this weekend as busy and started looking at potential places that I wanted to go. 7 World trade center was one of the buildings that I really wanted to go to and it required reservations. I was lucky enough to be part of the group on Sunday Oct 11th to see the inside of 7WTC. We got to see one of the floors that the architects are using as a meeting area for the entire WTC site project as well as an empty floor that had gorgeous views of the city.

I was actually put on the waiting list for this site even though I sent in my reservation request 5minutes from start time. I received the confirmation two days before the actual tour so I was very excited

OHNY tour

Looking North

Looking West

Looking East

Tags: ohny tour nyc
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Socrates Sculpture Park & Flushing Meadows Park

Saturday, October 10th, 2009

So before my vacation ended ( I took 5days off) I wanted to do a little roaming around and take pictures somewhere. I started off the day at home researching places to go but soon realized I was wasting time. I knew I wanted to go to a few places in Queens so I decided to make it the only borough I visited. First stop I went to was Socrates Sculpture Park in Long Island City. I was a bit disappointed and I guess I expected more interesting artwork to be displayed. I still walked around but only stayed for about 30mins because I wasn’t really inspired to take any photos.

Second stop was Flushing Meadows park where I went to the Queens art museum (blog post to come later) and walked around from 530 till 730pm till the sky was nice enough to take pictures of the Unisphere. When the sun set, the temperatures quickly dropped but luckily there were people playing soccer around so I was just walking around snapping photos and trying to keep warm.

Tags: queens flushing meadows park, socrates sculpture park long island city
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Fireworks by the bridges

Wednesday, October 7th, 2009

So this week I had off from work because I needed a break from it and just wanted to relax. On Oct 4th I saw on twitter that it was Manhattan Bridges 100th anniversary and that the city was going to have a fireworks display to celebrate the event. I got to the little park in Brooklyn in between both bridges around 7pm and when I checked twitter I found out news that South Street Seaport was going to have a fireworks display of their own for Diwali festival celebration. First to go off was the fireworks behind Brooklyn bridge, then 30minutes later fireworks behind Manhattan bridge went off.

I wasn’t able to take pics of the fourth of July fireworks this year but that day I was able to catch two of them right by my favorites bridges!

Brooklyn Bridge

Manhattan Bridge

Tags: manhattan brooklyn bridge fireworks
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Statue of Liberty at night

Saturday, October 3rd, 2009

When I am at work I have nothing better to do than to surf flickr and look for interesting thread discussions. Last week I stumbled upon a thread saying that both Liberty and Ellis Island was going to be open at night for one day each and I immediately wanted to go. The event was to celebrate Ken Burns PBS documentary “National Parks” and the cruise was offered through Statue Cruises. Both Islands were open for the first time at night to the public.

I got on the first boat to Liberty Island and there were tons of people who were also there getting on the boat, luckily not that many people wanted to stand in the front area of the boat so I was treated to great views of the sunset in lower manhattan.

I got there around 7pm and went to eat first since the sky was still a bit bright, the sky quickly started to turn that beautiful blue but unfortunately I ate too slow. I don’t regret missing the blue hour because well, I was at Liberty Island at night! Which normally never happens. I did end up going here by myself and it has its pros and cons. I was able to get my shots in and enjoy the views and just have time to myself. I didn’t feel like I was dragging another person along as I took shot after shot. But everyone that was there had friends with them and after awhile I felt like such a loner!

Statue Cruises

Liberty Island

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September 11th

Thursday, October 1st, 2009

Last year I was able to take a picture of the memorial lights from Brooklyn and we all thought it was the last year. I guess they found someone to sponsor the lights for this year because it surprised many people when they found out it was happening again. This year the weather wasn’t that great and the entire day it was raining and drizzling and just downright wet. Even with that weather I was determined to go.

This year I went to Manhattan to be right by the lights. As I arrived there around 8pm there were many other photographers there taking pictures. I overheard many people had come to Manhattan because the view from the other parts of the city wasn’t that good. The low lying clouds from the wet weather blocked the beams of light and just made one massive bright light in the sky. My pictures aren’t that great as well, but I am happy with them and also happy that I can carry on the tradition of photographing the lights. Hopefully next year they will be back

The year before from Brooklyn

September 11th 2009

Tags: september 11th 2009 photography manhattan long exposure brooklyn
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