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A Long Walk

★ posted on 25 Nov 2007 at 11:52 am under Life in General ★

So today I finally managed to get my ass out of my apartment. The temperature was a cool 3 degrees C. Heh, imagine standing in a refridgerator, that’s how cold it was. The chill in the air reminded me of the holidays I had with my mom and grandmother going to Perth and New Zealand. It was very cold and there was that freshness and energy in the air, sort of like when you are chewing mint gum.

My goal today was to go see Miss Liberty but I’d only be able to get a rear view as she was facing Manhattan. I would be looking at her from Liberty State Park, which was on my side of New Jersey. On my way there, I noticed some shops and other places that I never realised was there. That’s just me, having been here for nearly 3 months and still a stranger to my surroundings.

This here is sort of a self portrait. By 3pm, the sun was already casting long shadows. I just continued walking and managed to head in the right direction with all the street signs. Cutting right through the park, I managed to end up near the coastline.

Its’ kind of a touristy spot, with the Liberty Science Centre nearby, a big, sprawling park and access to Ellis Island to see the Statue of Liberty. I was just walking along the coastline and snapping pictures as I went along.

Finally got to Miss Liberty and was quite disappointed.

Sadly, she was just too far away and that was the best shot I could get with the limited length of my lens. On the bright side, I did manage to see a spectacular sunset, even if it didn’t quite turn out on my camera. I’m not sure if it’s technique or a limitation of the camera at this point, but the contrast between the bright and dark areas was quite great.

* * *

Looking at my previous set of photos at central park, that one seemed to be more a study of colour, without a sense of where the picture was taken. The shots I did today were more descriptive of the location, and I had to keep it at wide angle to grab the scene. Taking pictures of wide expanses and far away objects isn’t really my kind of thing, but I need to be able to see things differently when taking these sorts of shots, so it’s a good way to practise these shots.

The cold weather messed up my brain a bit as I was fumbling with my camera every now and then between squinting at the bright sunlight, keeping my hands warm and just framing the shot. I didn’t even try too hard to manually get the settings right as well. Wrestled with the cold weather, but managed to get some decent shots, so I’m satisfied at least. Heh.