Category:Travel
Today had me all excited: I got to see NYC from the air, and shoot pictures too.
Taking a helicopter flight over the city has been on my bucket list for a long time. Many companies for flights, but little do it as FlyNYON do it. They specialize in flights for photographers. You get to fly with the doors off and your feet outside the aircraft, and take as many photos as you want. They will even let you decide what you wanna see.
After getting a safety briefing, getting your gear secured, you are strapped in and hooked to the back of the aircraft and they take you up for a 30 minute flight that is just awesome! Really awesome. I saw the city like I have never seen it before. And the Hudson River too… When our pilot pitched the aircraft over to the side where I sat over the Hudson River at the Statue of Liberty, it felt like I was flying!
Flying whit FlyNYON is better than any roller coaster.
Shooting turned out to be a lot harder than I expected. Doors off means that you are fully exposed to the environment, the wind, the speed of the aircraft and the down wind from the rotor. But I got a couple of very nice shots.
A few minutes before we were supposed to take of, a call came in from air traffic control: “a VIP arrived in Manhattan. The airspace above Manhattan will be closed.” The VIP turned out to be US Vice President Joe Biden. A closed airspace meant that we could not cross Manhattan, hover near the WTC or Times Square. But to me that turned out to be a blessing. Our pilot took us up the East River as far as the Bronx. And that gave me a chance to take this nice shot of Yankee Stadium.
Today was a beautiful sunny day, much like it was on Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2001. The weather seemed appropriate for my planned to visit the 9/11 Memorial & Museum.
I had already been to the 9/11 Memorial 2 years ago, but not yet to the museum. And I had not seen the WTC site with the 1 World Trace Center building complete.
It was a very emotional day: especially the stories of the FDNY firefighters choked me up. Listening to the tape of the FDNY dispatch listing all the crews that rushed to the site and moments later hearing the sounds of numerous Man Down Alarms is hard to take.
The women and men of KLM and Delta Airlines got me across the ocean safely and comfortably yesterday. After getting to the city for dinner, I turned in early after the long flight. Didn’t take my camera yesterday.
Today I did though. I had promised myself not take the the subway, but stroll around the city and take pictures of the famous buildings. It was a bright sunny day getting me that beautiful blue sky over landmarks like The Flatiron Building downtown or the Guggenheim Museum on 5th ave.
And later in the evening, I got just about enough light to capture the rush of the city around Radio City Music Hall.
Plans made, gear checked, bags packed, browsing through some pictures for some last minute inspiration. I’m all set for a little photo trip to one of my favorite cities.
I love going to New York City. It is one of my favorite cities to be in. Just for a couple of days, a week or so. I like to wander around the city. Enjoying the sights, the lights, the sounds of the city. And with it goes songs about the city. And these are my favorite songs for New York City. I’ll always make sure I have’em on my iPhone when I’m in the city.
It’s so much fun to take a NJtransit bus from my regular hotel in New Jersey into Manhattan and having Springsteen’s Meeting Across The River playing on my headphones, and then taking the Underground to Yankees Stadium with Bobby Womack’s Across 110th Street. Or how about when Brian Fallon of The Gaslight Anthem wispers ‘If you’re anywhere in Manhattan in the next eight days or so, let me know.’ at the end of Stay Lucky?
This playlist always puts me in a New York state of mind, and my bags are pretty much packed already.
The Scott Kelby Annual Worldwide Photo Walk is on its 8 edition. I don’t think I’ve ever missed one. The For the 3rd year in a row, I’ve joined Marco Voet‘s walk in Antwerp. I meet a couple of the same photographers there. Some of them have become friends by now.
The Worldwide Photo Walk to me is just as much a social and networking event as it is a photo event. Didn’t shoot a whole lot of photos. But I had my Fifty-Five Fifty project in the back of my mind on the walk and I came up with 2 nice shots of icon places in the great city of Antwerp.
My Buddy Michel Keppens and I have found a little bit of paradise hidden in the heart of Belgium. We had been talking on and off about doing a photo shoot together. Not just something that you trough together in a couple of minutes, grab the 1st model you can find, head on out, start to shoot and hope for the best.
We wanted something that was a bit more carefully planned. Since it is summer, we decided on a swim wear shoot: somewhere on a tropical location. We found this little river in a nature preserve in Belgium that could fit our needs. We went location scouting, put together a mood board, blocked 3 dates in our calendar, booked models and makeup artists for all dates, and… Last week we went out for our 1st shoot in the series.
Models Magalie and Lizzy joined us on our 1st trip to the Ardennes. They were impressed by the beauty of the location. If you consider that I found the location doing some Geocaching, that is kinda cool.
Michel and I had booked models that would mind posing in latex swim wear. Because, of course, no shoot this big with me as a photographer would be complete without it involving latex. Lizzy wore a red polka-dot set from Westward Bound and Magalie wore a daring one-piece suit designed by William Wilde.
I enjoyed a day out with these 2 lovely ladies and my buddy Michel and I look forward to another shoot in this series. I will leave you with this little look behind the scenes with Magalie and Michel.
London is one of my favorite cities for a weekend getaway. It has been for a long time. And still, every time I go there, I discover new things and little corners I have never been or new vantage points for sights I’ve seen often. Usually, I just book an hotel and a seat on the Eurostar. But this time I came prepared: I was determined to shoot a series of interesting photos.
So besides plans to go see the Elvis expo at the O2 Arena and the Alexander McQueen expo at the V&A museum, a couple of of nice restaurants we wanted to check out, I also had done my research to shoot cityscapes in beautiful London. City Hall, the O2 Arena, Tower Bridge and the Docklands were on my list.
When we planned the trip, we didn’t realize London would be celebrating the 70th anniversary of the VE Day (Victory in Europe at the end of World War II). So I also had the good fortune to get this shot of the Admiralty Arch.
One of my best friends found this thing called Zermatt Unplugged: a series of concerts in the Ski-resort Zermatt in the Swiss Alps. They had a great lineup this year: Patricia Kaas, Heather Nova and Melissa Etheridge were all playing in the same week at the festival. When he told me, I jokingly replied: “Have you bought tickets and booked a hotel already? Why not?”
It did not take us to long to decide to go though. It has been forever since I was in Switzerland, so driving down there, do a little photography and a bit of hiking, and listing to great artists I happen to like, sure was a good idea.
Took a couple of nice pictures in the Alps while driving to Zermatt.
Zermatt is a small town but I’m sure it is buzzing in winter because it’s most famous as a ski resort and their main attraction: the Matterhorn. The mountain hid itself in the clouds while we were there, but when the clouds finally lifted, we go this amazing view of the mountain.
