brooklyn bridge

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The city that never sleeps offers so many amazing places to photograph. Whether you like architecture, interiors, or street photography, New York City is home to so many possible photo opportunities. It’s easy to be overwhelmed by all the possibilities, my biggest tip is to not plan so much in a day and take your time at each location. Each place is stunning and unique in its own way. It would be a shame to rush and miss some amazing experiences and photos. This probably means you should extend your stay now because NYC is honestly one of the best cities in the world.

So here’s my list of the 15 best places to photograph in New York City:

Central Park

A visit to New York is not complete without a stop at Central Park, and it is HUGE. This particular image was captured in Bethesda Terrace in Central Park and is just one part of the 1.3 miles long park that spreads across 51 city blocks. There’s also an ice skating rink, zoo, views of the city and so much more. If anything, grab some takeout and have a nice picnic on a park bench. There’s no other place in the city like it.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Close to Central Park is the Metropolitan Museum of Art also known as the Met. A place where celebrities dress up in wild costumes for the Met Gala once a year and where you can see one-of-a-kind art. One of the largest fine art museums in the world, The Met offers many fantastic photo opportunities inside the museum.

Times Square

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How can there be a list of places to photograph without Times Square? It’s a must-see when visiting the big apple, especially at night. It’s like the whole city lights up. I like to go after it rains. The reflections that are found can make your images really pop with color.

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Or experience Times Square in a totally different way by visiting a rooftop. I created this from a hotel rooftop bar in Times Square. There are plenty of them, depending on what view you want to get but it can be absolutely breathtaking.

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A little break from cold New York photos to this image of hot New York LOL. The weather in New York is so extreme. This one was taken last year when Andrew and I visited New York in the end of August. That trip was a little different because we stayed for 2 or 3 nights instead of our usual one. We also had Frankie on this trip, but this image was taken at night time and he already had a long day of exploring the city so he just stayed back.

So I captured this right before we were about to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. I’m not sure what inspired me to take this image but I just liked the colorful wall in the background and the “no standing sign” leaning over like that. Either way, I thought this would be an appropriate image for today since it’s Andrew’s birthday…. and it’s a picture of him in New York. LOL.

We don’t have any real plans for the day yet. To be honest, I’ve been feeling a little sick since we’ve been back so I’m not sure how much fun I’d be for celebrating. All I know is that we’ll definietly have some cake today. If you know anything about Andrew, it’s the fact that this guy loves his sweets. When we first started dating, I wasn’t much of a dessert person but since we’ve been together, I’ve grown to appreciate sugar. LOL. All kinds of it too. So if we do nothing else, there has to be cake.

My camera settings for this image is F7.1 at 0.8 sec at ISO 640 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens handheld. I just put my camera on the ground for this long-ish exposure and told Andrew to stand very still.

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Ok, please be honest with me on this one. What do you think about this picture? It is so different from what I usually capture but as soon as I saw the scene, I really liked it.

To be honest, it’s so different for me that I’m kinda hesitant on posting it. I get those fears like ‘what if people don’t like it’ or ‘what if people don’t like me because they don’t like it’. That last one doesn’t make sense but it’s actually something I think about. Crazy, huh?

I captured this while we were walking off the Brooklyn Bridge. When we first got onto the bridge, we stopped at this stand to get water. So when we got back down, I knew he was still going to be there but I didn’t expect this awesome frame and the glow from the carts to show up.

It sort of reminds me of that movie ‘Sleepers’. Do you remember that one? It’s wayyyy back in the day. 1996! With a young Brad Pitt and a cute Brad Renfro. If you haven’t seen it, it’s a little disturbing. Andrew and I were talking about it a while back and for some reason decided to watch it again right before our trip. The movie is based in Hells Kitchen, NYC and there was a hot dog stand involved. That’s all I’m going to say. So when I saw this scene in real life, it reminded me of the movie. I’m not even sure if I’d recommend the movie. It depends on how old you are… but it’s a good one.

The settings for this image is 1/5th of a second at F5.0 and ISO 250. To capture it all in focus, I used the banister as my tripod. Luckily the hot dog vender or customer were not moving very much 🙂

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When we first arrived in New York, Brooklyn Bridge Park was one of our first stops. We originally went to go get ice cream but ended up walking across the Brooklyn bridge. Kind of.

But I did not have a tripod with me. Andrew and I were just planning on taking it easy and not really do much that evening since we were both tired from travel. No problem at all. As long as I have my camera, charged batteries and my memory card, I’m down for whatever and not having a tripod pushed me to find creative ways around that. So as Andrew was finishing up my ice cream (they gave me wayyyy too much), I was trying to find different ways to keep my camera sturdy in this evening light. I took quite a few shots. Some from the ground, some from leaning against trees, etc. This image turned out to be my favorite composition.

If you look towards the left of this image on the pier, you can see how there’s a fence there, right? Well that same thing was going on right in front of me so I kneeled down and put my camera on the ground, in between the wood from the pier and the iron fence. So thats what the foreground texture is. The wood grain. I love how it turned out and how it’s so noticeable. I also think it adds a different element to the image having the bottom half so dark. For some reason it kind of reminds me of Gotham City from Batman.

The settings for this image is 1.6 seconds at F7/1 ISO 800 with my Sony A7II 16-35mm.

Have a great weekend everyone! Hope you all have something fun planned and if you do, let me know in the comments. Stay safe! I can’t believe September is almost over….

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After settling into our AirBNB, Andrew and I decided to take Frankie on a walk around our neighborhood to see if there were any good places to eat dinner. We found this one amazing Italian restaurant and luckily they had this really cute outdoor patio so we could bring Frankie too. The food was so good. OMG. I had this mushroom pasta dish, it was so good that I’m still thinking about it now. Anyways….

Frankie was obviously tired from the drive, all the walking around and watching us eat delicious food. We were originally going to take him to Brooklyn Bridge Park but thought he wasn’t going to be able to make it. So we took him back to the AirBNB and made our way over. It’s a good thing he didn’t come cuz we ended up walking EVERYWHERE. Somehow, we even ended up on the Brooklyn Bridge. We’ve both walked it before, but this time was different because it was at night. I was having a ball with all the long exposures and trying to come up with creative compositions. In the end, I really enjoyed this one. I like how you can still see a hint of all the yellow taxis driving by but also the Manhattan skyline.

We didn’t walk across the whole bridge though. We only made it halfway. We figured if we walked the whole way, than that would have meant that we would have had to walk all the way back too. So this was taken from the middle-ish area of the bridge. HAHA

My camera settings for this image was F4.0 at 1.3 seconds ISO 400 handheld – but mostly just using the railings and things to steady the camera. I wish I had a steady enough hand to hold the camera that still for 1.3 seconds. HA!

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Walking across the Brooklyn bridge has always been one of those bucket list things to do for me. I mean how cool is it that you can walk across this suspension bridge and gets these totally amazing views of the city and East River? Next, I want to do the Golden Gate Bridge. But I want to do it when it’s really foggy out. I think that’d be so fun.