An Urban Adventure, NYC Style - Part 1

Although my trip to New York City was back on March 19, I had a draft written up about it a few days afterward and including as many details as possible. So, I have everything about the trip as new as if I just been to NYC yesterday. Since that trip, I also found out a lot of history about the places I went to and was in the vicinity of. Now I can add that info to my post, along with a list of sites to see for a future visit to NYC.



I signed up for the trip only a few days before, to see the Broadway musical "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying," at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre, starring Daniel Radcliffe and John Larroquette. I remember Larroquette from the TV series "Night Court." Fliers with the "Harry Potter" star in corporate attire were hanging around campus advertising the trip.



Saturday, March 19 arrived and I met the rest of the tour group early in the campus cafe. It wasn't long before we were on the bus heading for NYC's theatre district. Until that day, I had not been to NYC in well over a decade. Ready with my camera, I snapped photos of the Empire State Building upon first sight of it from the bus. Our view of Manhattan was from the opposite side of the Hudson and we passed the Newark Airport as we drew closer to our entrance into the city via the Lincoln Tunnel.





The bus followed a circular path from Weehawken, passing the town's charming library with its old-world architecture. I couldn't get a good photo of that, so I'll have to try next time. A billboard of relief efforts for the disaster in Japan was displayed just outside the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel, and directly over the entrances were some billboard ads for the Apple iPad.



Going through the Lincoln Tunnel, in a way, was an early moment of culture shock during the trip. I've been through the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel before. However, the traffic in the Lincoln Tunnel was much different, crawling slowly with numbers of tour buses. I don't remember how I crossed into NYC years ago, whether by bridge or tunnel. So the sight of the traffic squeezed together into two lanes toward the city just amazed me.




A staff member from campus who sat in the seat in front of my said to someone, "Can you imagine commuting into the city every day in this?"

I think part of my own amazement stemmed from being excited to visit NYC again after so long. Although I don't consider myself a city person, NYC is a place that I love for a day trip or even a weekend stay. There was still so much I hadn't seen there, and was about to see more of NYC's sites for the first time. Regarding the idea of being a city person, I would have said on a scale of one to 10, with 10 being city person, I was a four prior to this trip.

After exiting the Lincoln Tunnel the new addition of traffic emerging into NYC was greeted with signs directing vehicles with two options. Uptown / Theatre District, go to the left. Downtown / Madison Sq. Garden, go to the right. The Al Hirschfeld Theatre was only a few blocks, and many taxis, away now.

I continued snapping photos to capture moments of everyday life in New York City, as well as any objects that reflected the feel of being in the Big Apple. Images of taxis, the overflowing streets, signs of Broadway shows and NYC businesses were already filling up my camera's memory card. This sign warning of a hefty fine for honking also caught my attention. I had never seen a sign with this message anywhere else. Despite the warning, I did hear some honking all around.

Everything I had seen to this point built up my feelings of NYC fever. I couldn't wait to see where the day would take me, besides the one known place, the Al Hirschfeld.

As our group pulled p outside the theatre, I didn't know who I'd be exploring the city with. Not really wanting to wander NYC on my own, I randomly joined four other girls from the bus once my feet hit the pavement. I didn't know them and so far didn't have any classes with them. As a sort of "survival-in-the-city" instinctive measure, I made a mental note of what they were wearing. That way, I'd be able to spot them in the crowd of people we'd share the streets with. One girl in my group of five had on a royal blue t-shirt with the name of our college sports team and slogan on the back in white letters. So she would be easy to keep track of during our urban adventure.

We had some extra time on our hands, so the five of us started out in search of a place to grab some lunch. With my pocketbook draped over one should and my neck, the strap under my sweater, I followed the other girls' lead. Two of them seemed to know more about the city, which was a great help. As we walked on, I gripped my camera tightly, snapping some photos along the way. One of the other girls also captured some images on her compact camera.

"A Slice of New York" was our lunch spot of choice, where I decided to try a slice of baked ziti pizza. I never saw a pizza topped with baked ziti before, and wondered if it was a specialty that began in NYC. Either way, it was very good, reminding me of Julia Roberts in "Eat Pray Love," when she says, "I'm having a relationship with my pizza." My trip to NYC so far, including bus, theatre ticket and lunch, cost only $45...quite a bargain!

We made our way back to the Al Hirschfeld, snapping more photos as we went. Once there, a line going around the corner and nearly to the end of that block greeted us. A middle-aged couple joined the line behind us and I overheard the woman saying with a laugh, "They're all here to see the "Harry Potter" kid!"

The line moved quickly and we were inside the beautifully-detailed theatre before long. I bought a souvenir travel coffee mug with the musical's funny line about coffee going around it, then made my way to my seat. A theatre employee directed me where to go, the 2nd row from the top, 4th seat from the right. Near center, it was a prett good view of the stage and the show's backdrop detail. Further excitement built up in me as I awaited the start of the first Broadway show I'd see.

This was featured in the waterfront Camaro Show on June 5th in Wilmington, DE. I walked around it to get the entire paint job depicting American military history on video. However, I have to edit the background audio out and try uploading it again to my Youtube channel.

Here is a view of the passenger side.

I'll probably try to edit the sound out of my video with software used on campus. Hopefully, that will work. You can get a better sense of the patriotic paint job in the video. So when the editing is finished, I'll upload it onto Youtube and add the link here.

A Grand Old Ship

After visiting Independence Seaport in Philly on Saturday, May 21, I took this photo of the SS United States.







There are efforts under way to preserve it, which you can find out more about on the SS United States Conservancy website. Since I took the photo from a distance, I want to go to where the ship is docked and take some close-ups of it sometime. Anyway, I wanted to share this as someone who is interested in maritime history. Anyone who loves maritime history will find a lot of interesting stories from this great ship's past. I hope its preservation will be successful.

My Must-See List of National Parks

For Earth Day 2011, I decided to post a list of the national parks around the U.S. that I hope to visit someday for photographing nature. I also shared this on my Tumblr page.

1. Denali



2. Glacier Bay



3. Grand Canyon



4. Saguaro



5. Channel Islands



6. Joshua Tree



7. Redwood



8. Sequoia



9. Yosemite



10. Mesa Verde



11. Everglades



12. Hawaii Volcanoes



13. Yellowstone



14. Acadia



15. Isle Royale



16. Congaree



17. Badlands



18. Arches



19. Bryce Canyon



20. Shenandoah



21. Olympic



22. Grand Teton

Travel for the Near Future

I thought I'd share a few places that I hope to visit in the near future to do some photography and video work. I guess they could be called special interest travel, as they all represent different interests that I have, or that others have who like these places for the same reasons. Those interests include architecture, literary sites, maritime and city scenes and various areas of history.

• New Hope, PA / Lambertville, NJ


• Cape May, NJ


• Florida's Space Coast


• Gettysburg, PA


• Indiana


• Hartford, CT


• Boston / Salem / Cape Cod, MA


• Sleepy Hollow, NY


• Charlottesville, VA


• Washington, D.C.


• Baltimore, MD


• Ireland

I went back to New York City for the first time in years, so keep an eye out for my post about it. Above is one of many photos I took there on Saturday, March 19.

What places do you hope to visit in the next few months or in the next year or so?

Florida-Bound...Hopefully

After a Winter season like this, not too many northerners could resist a trip to a sunny destination like Florida. What's more exciting is when it is someone's first time visiting, and that's just the case with me going to Florida. Of course, no official plans have been put together yet. However, I should have enough money to go this year and I'm hoping to go there for only a short stay in June.


It would be great to do some photography and video somewhere I'd be visiting for the first time, too. The experience should give me plenty of things to write about as well. I'll post updates about any Florida travel plans later on.

New Years Fireworks Footage

While ringing in 2011, I was taking a lot of photos and video of the fireworks display at Harrah's Casino in Delaware County.

Below is one of many photos I took of the fireworks, as I went between photo and video mode on my camera.

I usually upload many photos of various events and trips onto my Facebook page. However, this time I am going to do something different. I'm going to put my fireworks footage together into one slideshow and upload it onto my Youtube Channel.

First, I have to write down the order of the photos and videos file names I'm going to use. It'll make it easier to skip over the ones I don't want to include in the slideshow. After that, I'll be able to insert my photo and video picks into a movie maker software.

I feel inspired to learn as much as I can about video, both production and editing. Last Spring, I took a video production class and learned a lot. There are other levels of video classes that I also plan to take. As I learn new things, I want to create projects outside of classes and add the title of "videographer" to my resume. I'd like to take that to the level of creating documentaries someday.

Photo Crafty

While shopping for a few more gifts this past weekend, I found a book that combined photography and crafts. It had a lot of creative ideas about putting together various ways of displaying photos. One example had a photo in the corner of a large frame, accented by a number of details...strips of lace, ribbon, charms and descriptive words relevant to the photo. The book also included lists of the material needed to complete whatever photo and craft project that could come to mind. Inspired by the content of the book, I decided to buy it and come up with some project ideas of my own.


Over the past few months, I had been thinking about trying my hand at scrapbooking. I thought about doing this for one or two projects here and there, combining my photography. The photo and craft book seems to be a way to slowly go into scrapbooking, rather than creating entire scrapbooks. I don't know how regular scrapbooking can be as a hobby for me, since it takes a lot of time. However, I want to try to create a scrapbook sometime. I have a lot of favorite themes to choose from as the main focus.


So along with going out on short trips and documenting them with photography, I'm going to venture into these photo projects. I'll start by putting ideas down on paper, then get to work on small projects with my photos. I'd like to create something that reflects particular trips that I take, adding related embellishments to a project. That's a start for now.

Bridge Conditions at Delco Area Train Station

I was on an assignment for my college campus news, taking photos at a train station on Nov. 19 for a Septa story. The assigment was to take photos of the Septa trains, people boarding and getting off of the train.




While waiting for the train, I was taking photos of other subjects and the bridge going over the tracks was of particular interest. I noticed that the bridge had piles of bricks used as added support going across under both lanes. It brought to mind the infrastructure problem across America, with many bridges and roads needing serious repair.


Here is a link to one photo I took of the bridge: http://bit.ly/ihlvYh. The link will take you directly to my photo in the http://www.allaroundphilly.com news site's user photo gallery.


I've been told that this particular bridge in on a list for some major work, although I don't know when that will happen. I haven't been on a Septa train in a long time, so I'm not usually down by the bridge. It shocked me to see just how bad the bridge looks when viewed from the train station parking lot.

Sports Photos

I found out today that two of my sports photos made it into my campus news, for the upcoming issue. This is the first time I've ever had sports photos published. The photos were from the men's alumni lacrosse game, and although sports is not my usual subject area, it was fun just trying to get some good photos. It's more experience for me with taking action photos. This was also the first lacrosse game I had ever gone to.

Working My Camera Settings

Before moving on to more road trip posts, I thought I'd write a little bit about my photography class this semester. Some work for the class includes taking photos that will go with articles in the campus news. Other work involves practicing with the technical settings such as aperture, shutter speed and ISO. These are the areas that I needed to learn more about. Up until this photography class, I would take photos and concentrate on general composition.

This is one of the photos I took while practicing with the shutter speed settings on my camera. It's a view of I-95, looking southbound. A truck on the opposite side was pulled over for a while as I took a series of these photos.

What's interesting to me is that I've always wanted to try and get those streaked images of nighttime traffic. Something else I'd like to do with long exposures is to capture star trails. I think I'll get to that point sometime as I continue to learn more technical photography skills. For now, I know the triangle of settings that work together...aperture (for example, written out as f/5.6), shutter speed (1/250) and ISO (400).

Recent Photo Excursions

My Fall classes have kept me pretty busy lately, although all very interesting. However, I will write about and share images soon from two recent photo outings with different time period themes. I'll be posting on a local car show sponsored by a 50s diner, followed by a renaissance faire in New Jersey.

A New Focus

I decided to change the purpose of my blog page slightly, from a focus on various outings to a focus on my overall experiences with photography. This is due to not always getting out for some photography as regularly as I would like to. If the weather is bad or my schedule doesn’t allow it, etc., I might not be able to post anything for a while. Or, I may have something to write about but no new photos to go with it; much like when writing about places I want to visit for the first time.

So to avoid a lack of posts somewhat, I thought I’d change my focus before I get too much further into posting on here. Besides, I have many subjects that I like to capture images of; historic places and nature of course, but also current events, artsy things, etc. The first photo below is one I took at a Peace Rally I covered for the West Chester University of PA campus newspaper, The Quad. The second photo I took is one example I consider on the artsy side.

In starting my new focus, I have a new venture coming up in the general world of art and that is the possibility of being in an art show for the first time. The alumni association of my local community college is holding its annual art show for members this December. I graduated from the community college back in December of 2006 with my liberal arts degree and minor in journalism.

The participant application and fee both have to be in by November 20, and I have a few things to do before then. I’m working on writing a short artist statement, as well as deciding what five photos to submit. After that, I have to get them matted or framed and hand-deliver my photo entries to the alumni association. The easiest part of this is narrowing down my photo choices to only digitals for their sharper appearance.

I’m not sure how much it will cost to have photos matted, and money has been an issue lately what with the economy. If I find a low enough price, I will definitely be able to enter the art show; otherwise, I will wait for future art shows when there is more money.

There are more advanced areas of photography that I want to learn about, such as infrared black and white photography. I’m inspired to do so by the works of photographer Simon Marsden, who takes dramatic and haunting photos of European castles, ruins and landscapes. I upgraded from the 35mm Minolta Maxxum 5 film camera below; and have been using my current camera, a digital Canon PowerShot S5IS for two years now. It doesn’t have an infrared feature, so I’ll need another camera in the future; preferably a digital SLR by Canon or Nikon.

One goal with infrared photography is to capture wedding images. I never really thought of wedding photography to a serious degree before, although my cousin’s wedding photos were very inspiring. They weren’t done in infrared; it was a mix of the scenery, candid and posed shots that inspired the idea to think more about wedding photography as another subject matter.

An Introductory Post

As a young girl, I grew up in a mid-sized suburban town and always looked forward to family vacations. Those times did not come around often, but just being in another place was exciting. So at an early age, my desire to travel was ignited. In some way or another, recording travel experiences was always a part of the fun. Looking back, it seems as though collecting postcards and jotting down memories was my own variation of travel journalism.

In high school, I went on a variety of trips with an outdoor adventure club and typed up stories to remember them by. Looking back, my only regret is that I had no camera on me to compliment those stories. I think that in those days, I didn’t really consider myself as being very good at taking pictures. The shaky-handed or slightly thumb-obstructed image was what came out in many instances. Yet I always wanted to take really good travel pictures because of that interest to see places and document them well.

Years went by with the occasional day trip and a couple of those one-time-use 35 mm cameras would always be handy. On a trip to Washington, D.C. for Memorial Day 2001, I took a picture of the Washington Monument from where I stood near its base. I had hoped to capture Old Glory waving in the picture as well, but wasn’t sure until the film was developed how it would turn out. I just hoped that the flag waving did not block out the top of the monument.

Ever since taking that picture, I have looked for more opportunities to go places with my camera in hand. It made me want to pay more attention to composition and get creative with photography wherever I go.

In 2004, I went on a family trip to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. It was the first time I had the chance to travel with my own decent film camera. It was a Minolta Maxxum 5, and there were many opportunities to practice keeping the hands steady along with working on the composition of pictures. I used both color and black and white film to capture images of a destination I enjoyed visiting.

These days, the camera I use is a Canon PowerShot S5IS and it also has video capabilities. For now, I stick mostly to still images and continue to work on composition. But photography is only a part of my venture into the digital world of blogging. I want to document travel in written word, complimenting that using my passion for photography and any new knowledge I gain regarding video.

In the fall of 2006, I took my first college journalism class and found out many doors that it could lead to. The natural choice for me was to take the door that linked journalism to travel and photography, as is joining the blogosphere to document my travels. Having gained some written journalism skills now, my goal with this blog is to put those skills to use with my photography to tell my travel stories.

As an adult college student in a career change, I continue to pursue an education in journalism. So the travels I write about and capture in pictures and video will be fairly local at first. Before the summer is over, there are a few excursions I plan to go on and share experiences of on here.

One final point in my introductory post is this. In recent years, I began to deal with some back problems from time to time, varying levels of stiffness or pain in the lower lumbar area. However, pursuing travel to document in a blog is in part a message of not letting something stand in the way of my goals. It shows that people can do many things, beating whatever obstacle they may face.