I finally tried my camera’s “manual” mode. I still left a few things on “auto,” like the white balance setting, since I don’t really understand what that is, but I mostly played with the camera’s speed, sensitivity, aperture, and focal length.
Starting in Chelsea, I walked through the High Line and up to the Hudson Yards. The manual focus was a huge challenge for me, since I usually rely on the auto focus, so there was a lot of trial and error. Most shots were under-exposed, over-exposed, blurry, focused on the wrong thing, or just plain strange, but I salvaged a few with the help of Lightroom’s automatic edits.
These first two shots were from the Whitney Museum’s balcony. It was a pretty cloudy day, and it was supposed to rain, but thankfully it didn’t.
Getting the right exposure was difficult because I wanted the smallest possible aperture, with a fast shutter speed since my hands shook from the cold, so I increased the ISO much higher than I wanted to.
After the Whitney, I walked a few blocks up to the High Line’s entrance. I tried a few variations of Little Island Park at Pier 55, playing with the aperture, in hopes of blurring out the foreground and background. At f/5.6, I thought that there’d be a greater contrast.
Continuing along the High Line, I found some trees overlooking the street below. I tried the largest (f/3.5) and smallest (f/22) aperture that the camera allowed, and experimented with the exposure and ISO. I didn’t realize how cold the camera would get, plus I forgot my gloves at home, so my shaky hands were a real bummer. It wasn’t too cold, maybe like 35°F, but the wind made it much worse.
I didn’t like either of these shots as much as I thought I would, but I’m leaning toward the smaller aperture, where everything was in focus. I wish I knew creative editing techniques, even if just to pull out the yellows.
Here are a few more shots from the High Line, with a vanishing point in mind.
In the one above, you can see a bit of the rail yards on the left. I think I’m going to return here at night for some long-exposure light trails.
The Vessel was my last one. I went with a small aperture to get everything in focus, and did a quick shutter to counteract my shivering, increasing the ISO to the highest possible setting.
I went into this photo walk with low expectations, but I think I did somewhat okay. I know my photos aren’t great, but if you saw my prior photos over the years, this is a huge improvement. Baby steps, right?
Notes of Currant 