Rodney Campbell's Blog

We stayed in the The Marmara Manhattan Apartment Hotel whilst in New York, staying in a two bedroom apartment on the south west corner of the building on a relatively high floor (22nd)

The building is on East 94th street on the corner of 2nd avenue which places it in the yorkville/upper east side of Manhattan about 2/3rds of the way up Central Park (about 5 blocks from the park itself). There are a couple of nearby subway stations we used regularly at 96th street and 86th street

The apartment takes up the entire corner of the building so from the outside balcony of the building you get about a 200º view from the east towards the East river and around through the south (downtown) and across to the west towards where Central park would be up the hill

The Marmara is a relatively old building so the apartment and rooms were quite spacious and functional but fairly basic – no modern luxuries here

We did however have a pretty good cityscape view and especially at sunset the view over the city was very nice. Looking down Second Avenue we even get glimpses of the Empire State in the distance

Marmara View

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 62 mm, 15 sec at f/13, ISO 50

and a very nice sunset on another day looking up 94th street to the west

94th Street Sunset

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm, 30 sec at f/14, ISO 50

Sunrise itself was looking like a bit of a bust on my early morning trip to Central Park – too much cloud cover – and the sky was just getting progressively lighter with just a touch of colour

Note: These images (especially the wider shots) look much better when larger – so click any of the images below to see larger versions in an inline overlay slideshow gallery viewer.

I decided to explore this end of the park (we’d not been here before) – so I headed further around the western side of the reservoir and then headed south through the park

One of the many bridges crossing the roads in Central Park (still just before sunrise)

Road to Somewhere

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 52 mm, 2 sec at f/11, ISO 100

When I got around to the southern end of the reservoir I found another of these nice arched bridges pointing pretty much towards the rising sun (behind the clouds but we were at least getting some colour with these grey skies) so I setup the tripod for some shots and tried a number of selfies

My Park Sunrise

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm, 1/2 sec at f/16, ISO 100

Central & Me

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm, 1/5 sec at f/13, ISO 100

I continued wandering for another 30 minutes and eventually stumbled upon the Bethesda Fountain, Bethesda Terrace and the Minton Tiles at Bethesda Arcade (I’ve seen this place a number of times in various movies but never knew where it actually was)

Since it was still before 7AM there were still very few people about in the park so I was able to get a number of shots with no-one else in the frames (I was back here during the day on two other occasions and it was absolutely packed with people)

Bethesda

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 26 mm, 1/10 sec at f/11, ISO 100

Bethesda Terrace Arcade was created in the 1860s as a part of the Park’s main architectural feature. A grand staircase connects the Mall to the subterranean arcade

It was conceived to be an ornate interior that would act as a distinct counterpart to the open terrace and Lake. The highlight of the arcade is the magnificent Minton Tile ceiling designed by British-born architect and designer, Jacob Wrey Mould, who also conceived of the decorative carvings throughout the Terrace

Installed in 1869, there are more than 15,000 colourful, patterned encaustic tiles, made by England’s famed Minton Tile Company. Encaustic tiles, originally created to cover floors, are made of individual coloured clays pressed and fired into the tile to form the design. Bethesda arcade is the only place in the world where these Minton tiles are used for a ceiling. The niches that flank the walls of the arcade are covered with trompe l’oeil paintings that resemble the coloured stone inlay design that was never completed

Bethesda Arcade

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 16 mm, 1/2 sec at f/11, ISO 100

and a selfie version 🙂

Bethesda Selfy

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 16 mm, 1/2 sec at f/11, ISO 100

I had to do quite a number of takes on both of these till I was standing in just the right position with my head and body framed nicely in that left arch

Minton Ceiling

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 16 mm, 1/8 sec at f/9, ISO 100

and just up those stairs is The Mall. A walkway leading to the beautiful Bethesda Terrace, the Central Park Mall runs through the middle of the Park from 66th to 72nd street. A quadruple row of American elms, it is Central Park’s most important horticultural feature, and one of the largest and last remaining stands of American Elm trees in North America. The elms form a cathedral-like canopy above the Park’s widest pedestrian pathway

Still beautiful – if only it were the dead of winter and these trees were covered in snow – I’m sure I’ve seen that somewhere before… 🙂

The Mall

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 35 mm, 1/13 sec at f/8, ISO 100

Looking Through the Mall

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 35 mm, 1/15 sec at f/8, ISO 100

It was now 7:30 so I figured it was time to head back to the apartment and join the family for breakfast and head out for the days adventure

As I was still getting up very early each morning (time zone silliness :)) I decided to head up to Central Park to check it out for sunrise

After a brisk walk in the freezing cold an hour and a half before sunrise I reached 5th avenue and headed into the park. At this end of the park there is a huge reservoir (the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir) which spans almost the entire width of the park so my plan was to head around to the western side and shoot towards sunrise over the water

Officially named the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir in 1994, the Reservoir is famed for the 1.58 track that encircles the 106-acre body of water. It covers approximately 1/8th of the Park and holds over a billion gallons of water. When the Reservoir was built in 1862, its original purpose was to provide clean water for the city. While this function is not carried out today, the Reservoir does distribute water to other Central Park locations, such as the Pool, the Loch, and the Harlem Meer

I was a little concerned about walking around in Central Park at 4:45AM but perhaps unsurprisingly there were already a small number of people about – mostly joggers and walkers circling the reservoir

Initially I found myself a nice spot along the fence around the reservoir and looked to do a pre dawn cityscape over the water – this long exposure panorama (each frame is nearly 2 minutes long) is the result of stitching nine (9) vertical frames looking sort of south west over the water from the north east corner of the reservoir. 5th avenue is on the left with midtown manhattan in the left third and the upper west side on the right – still over an hour till sunrise

Note: These photographs (especially the wider shots) look much better when larger – so click any of the images below to see larger versions in an inline overlay slideshow gallery viewer.

Reservoir Dawning

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 32 mm, 110 sec at f/6.3, ISO 100

I then moved around to the northern end of the reservoir and shot another pre dawn LE pano looking straight down towards midtown with a longer focal length (60mm) to show more of the cityscape skyline. This one ten (10) frames stitched with the pre dawn colour. As this started over half an hour before sunrise and ended 15 minutes later the light changed quite dramatically over this time so I had to manually adjust the exposures on the way through and it was still a pain to manual adjust in post to allow it to stitch

Midtown Mystery

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 60 mm, 52 sec at f/8, ISO 100

Day 6 in New York saw us visit a number of locations. First up we headed across the river to Hoboken via the Path train to visit the home of Carlo’s Bakery – why you may ask – well my girls are all “Cake Boss” fans (a lifestyle show on Foxtel) and this is where it all happens

Note: These photographs (especially the wider shots) look much better when larger – so click any of the images below to see larger versions in an inline overlay slideshow gallery viewer.

We bought some pastries, had some brunch at a nearby diner and headed back to Manhattan to the World Trade Center site

Carlo’s

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 29 mm, 1/80 sec at f/4, ISO 100

Hoboken

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm, 1/25 sec at f/4, ISO 450

WTC Station

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm, 1/50 sec at f/4, ISO 100

Many Ups and Downs

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 29 mm, 1/30 sec at f/4, ISO 720

Earlier that morning I’d purchased the tickets to visit the 9/11 Memorial site online, however we were too early for our entry timeslot so we went for a walk to nearby Wall St. My wife works in the financial industry so she wanted to visit the area

Wall St

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 35 mm, 1/40 sec at f/4, ISO 1000

Trinity

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 16 mm, 1/15 sec at f/5.6, ISO 2200

After lunch we walked back to the WTC site and queued for entry. It’s a pretty sobering experience standing next to where the two massive world trade centre towers once stood. Now two massive waterfall pools of remembrance stand in the footprint of the two former towers

One World

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 16 mm, 1/250 sec at f/5.6, ISO 100

Reflected Ghosts

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 16 mm, 1/30 sec at f/8, ISO 100

A Time to Reflect

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 16 mm, 1/30 sec at f/8, ISO 100

Hallowed Ground

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 16 mm, 1/100 sec at f/8, ISO 100

I figured I’d try just one night time panorama whilst I was up here at the top of the rockefeller. I had nothing except my Gorilla pod so everything was going to be pretty manual and random. I could only shoot the frames horizontal (because the camera only mounts in landscape on the gorilla pod) and I basically just had to take the frames and pick the whole gorilla pod up and rotate it and try to get things to stay as level as possible across the frames

Note: These photographs (especially the wider shots) look much better when larger – so click any of the images below to see larger versions in an inline overlay slideshow gallery viewer.

I wasn’t really expecting too much out of this but I’m really happy with the result – five (5) horizontal frames stitched (taken around 8:10PM) this encompasses around a 180º view

Rock the Night

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 16 mm, 13 sec at f/8, ISO 100

It was bitterly cold up here at night and most people had left by 8:30PM – Even though I was rugged up I could barely feel my fingers and my daughter was grumbling about being cold everywhere 🙂

Time to crank the ISO and try a few portraits with the 24-70 and some on board flash for fill with the classic empire state in the background

Night Portraits

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm, 1/13 sec at f/4, ISO 3200

My daughter even managed one of me (most of the others were blurry due to camera shake – it’s heavy and it’s very cold :))

Rodney’s NYC

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 42 mm, 1/40 sec at f/4, ISO 3200