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Speaking candidly

unposed shots of people at work, rest, and play
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dsc_6451 a sunny afternoon at the lake
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dsc_6451 a sunny afternoon at the lake

candidCentral ParkBethesda fountain arearowboatschildrenparents and childrenspring

  • It happened in April of last year, my discovery of yet another great location for people pictures, Prospect Park. As a photographic New Years resolution in 2010, I made a vow to travel all over the 5 boros to places I'd never been before searching out new potential photographic opportunities. As a huge lover of Central Park I've often held the belief it's one of the greatest parks in the world for photographs, and sometimes I think I would shoot there every day for the rest of my life if someone would pay me to. But in reality I longed for fresh new parks and looking on the city map it seemed like Prospect park was the next best place to try, as it was absolutely huge and Brooklyn is just brimming with people. My very first time there I hit pay dirt, capturing a shot of a saxophonist silhouetted against the colorful spring flora. I personally consider it one of my finest candid shots. But the park was so large I couldn't explore it all in one day. So months later, in September, I came back a second time and traveled to many of the other spots I hadn't gotten around to before.<br /> <br /> One of them was the boathouse by the lake at the Audubon Center. The setting and lighting there was potentially magical, and I made a mental note to come back here on a sunny day so I could take the fullest advantage of the fabulous window lighting here and finally today, a full bakers dozen of months since my first trip to the park, was the day I got my chance. By the time I arrived here it was rather late in the afternoon and I was a little hungry as I hadn't eaten since breakfast, so buying something to eat at the Boathouse's commissary, I set down my camera on one of the small wrought iron tables and proceeded to enjoy my snack while observing the comings and goings of the many visitors here. Barely after swallowing my first few bites I spotted this mother and son walking towards me. Boy was this ever the kind of shot I had been dreaming of capturing here all this time.
  • dsc_5825 father and son moments
  • Now this shot I captured right out of the box in black and white on a hunch that that was the best way to go. I don't regret it.
  • dsc_5987 father and son moments
  • Today was the first day all year that I devoted to just photographing. It had been around two weeks since we buried mom, and having taken care of her many post funeral tasks I decided I could use a break and try and recharge my batteries. But I guess it was still too soon to expect that I was ready for that, as usually when I devote a whole day to shooting, I'm out of the house at the crack of dawn or right after eating breakfast, but today I didn't even leave the house till after one in the afternoon. Taking care of mom during her illness and death really had taken a lot out of me, and I still wasn't quite emotionally ready to jump back into the swing of things. But even with my rather late start to the day, my trip to Prospect Park turned out to be a very good one indeed.
  • As I made my journey up Central Park on this cloudy early evening in May, I headed towards one of my favorite spots, the Bethesda fountain. Usually when I walk down these steps I hear the echo of music, cellist playing, groups singing, a variety of performers playing, all to catch your eye and ear and occasionally wallet. But that was not the case this time.
  • As I walked down the steps I switched to my widest angle zoom lens, but not before zooming in close enough to get a good shot of one of the ladies t-shirts with the word team on it, so I could go home and enlarge the image on my computer and see what group was sponsoring this event.
  • When I got home a quick search online was able to satisfy my curiosity. The group getting these women and men in shape is known as "The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society" and they sponsor a program known as "Team In Training ". Turns out that it's the largest sports endurance training program in the world, and it provides training to run or walk marathons, participate in triathlons or 100 mile bike rides. It is also a fundraising campaign, in fact the Society's biggest. Since its inception in 1988 it has raised over a billion dollars for blood cancer research and patient services. Plus the "Team In Training" program has trained 460,000 athletes. Way to go!!
  • dsc_6207 group training
  • It was fun staying here for a few minutes, but with overcast skies and a sun sinking ever lower in the horizon, my ability to record the action weakened with every passing minute. It's times like this that I wish I could afford a D3s, it would have extended my time here greatly and given me the flexibility to record some really fun and edgy available light shots. But instead it was time to slip my camera back in my pack and head home, but not until I was able to successfully capture this plucky group reaching for the sky, both figuratively and literally.
  • Heading for the east side through Central Park I took a path through one of the nice lush lawns here. I wish the grass at my house looked this good. While admiring the lack of brown spots and weeds as far as the eye could see, I also noticed two different groups of people practicing gymnastic routines off in the distance, and just had to get in on some of this fun with my camera.
  • dsc_6358 balancing act
  • Viewing the world from a different perspective...
  • The next day after capturing photo's of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society whipping their latest group of hopefuls into shape to run a marathon, I again found myself at the Bethesda fountain. This time I chose to walk over the underpass instead of under it, and when I reached the railing over looking the plaza and lake I spotted a newlywed couple getting their pictures taken by their photographers - and everyone else in the area with a camera or cellphone. Never wanting to pass up a nice image I whipped my camera out from my spider holster and commenced to shooting from this great birds eye view.
  • The view of the happy couple from below the overpass where their wedding photographers were stationed was good too, however I was reluctant too go there at first as I don't like taking shots anywhere where the bride and groom could become distracted by my camera pointing at them, and cause them to loose focus of the directions being given by their photographers. But as I watched them I realized I would not have to worry about that in this case, as the passing crowds and myriad of onlookers were all invisible to these two lost in their own wonderful world. <br /> <br /> Wrapping his arms around his brides waist, the groom closed his eyes just as a gentle breeze passed lifting her veil and wrapping it around his arm like the wings of an angel, giving me my second nice shot.
  • dsc_6451 a sunny afternoon at the lake
  • Like the jet stream that circles the earth affecting the weather patterns everywhere, so too there is an emotional jet stream, circling our planet. Each of us contributes to it in some way. Unseen it affects us and we in turn affect it, in an endless dance that drives human events. There's no numerical grouping that I don't like capturing on film when I find that emotional jet stream - solo's, couples, trio's or large masses of humanity, each creates their own wide variety of often unpredictable emotional situations. <br /> <br /> Today it was a warm sunny summer day in early June and the lake in Central Park was filled with rowboats as folks took to the waters to enjoy the fresh air and have some fun. The aura of friendship and happiness flowing from this quartet of girls flowed out in all directions, reaching the shore and pulling in my camera to them.
  • When I'm lucky enough to run into one of those emotional currents worth photographing, and manage to successfully lock onto it with my camera I usually try to ride that vibe as long as I can until I manage to capture that magic moment. More often than not though, something happens to break that mood before I'm able to capture that potential image. The list of offending culprits is rather long, one of which is when a key member of the group stops doing whatever activity they were involved in that made them interesting to photograph in the first place, and look up into my camera. <br /> <br /> Being the fun loving person I am, if they smile or wave I almost always instinctively smile and often wave back, but unless they were part of a large group of people that kept on doing their activity unabated, the little editor man inside of me looks at the shot from an aesthetic stand point and tosses it onto the proverbial cutting room floor. But there is no unbreakable rule when it comes to this kind of thing, and if you peruse through this gallery you'll see several times when I just kept on shooting anyway when this happened. Each time it was because their acknowledgement of my camera somehow didn't hurt or sometimes made the shot even better.<br /> <br /> In this case when two of the girls in this rowboat spotted my camera, the emotional aura of fun flowing from the group never wavered, instead they just pulled me in.
  • It took many many years from the time I started photographing, before I became good at candid photography. Two years ago - in fact it was almost two years before the very day that I captured this fun loving foursome, that my candid photography took a permanent turn for the better, all in one magical day. On that day I purposefully left any equipment home that was not suitable for capturing candid shots of people. That made it harder for me to give up after a few unsuccessful hours and go looking for landscape or nature shots to capture instead. And many hours later as I took the trip back home I was delighted that I had more great candid images sitting inside my camera than I managed to capture in my entire life. <br /> <br /> At first I thought I had finally managed to combine my compositional and lighting skills with my candid photography attempts. But as time passed and the weeks and months dropped new images into this gallery, I started to realize that it was my success at channeling that unseen emotional current, that always separated the perfectly composed well lit shot that made it to this gallery, from the equally well composed and lighted identical shot that didn't capture that emotional current as well. Those shots remained on my hard drive instead. <br /> <br /> People may not identify with someone you capture on film who looks interesting or unusual. (How can you define with certainty what a wide variety of people you don't know, find interesting in other people)? But most of us can identify with someone thrilling to their favorite team making a great play. Or a young child playing with their puppy. Or that frustrated commuter starring at their watch as the train track in front of them remains aggravatingly empty. If you look at the magnificent photo's of the worlds great photographers I'll bet you'll be hard pressed to find one that doesn't strike an emotional cord with you. Until I instinctively started to incorporate that lesson into my candid photography my images did not improve. Now when I go out looking for candids my camera seeks out that emotional current like a bloodhound.
  • The emotions of friendship and joy that we share with each other makes life on earth worth living. The first shot in this sequence is almost certainly the only one that stands out ascetically, but many years from now it will be the three that follow that will warm my heart and keep me youthful inside when I'm old and grey.
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