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Speaking candidly

unposed shots of people at work, rest, and play
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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.
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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.

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.

candidCentral ParkBethesda fountain areasld1rowboatsspring

  • 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.
  • If you've ever visited the butterfly garden's at the Bronx Zoo you undoubtedly discovered two things fairly straight off. One, how wondrously colorful the inhabitants here are, whether butterfly or bird. Everywhere you looked you saw something draped in a rainbow of color. Secondly, you were absolutely bewildered by the oppressively humid temperature needed to protect the health of the animals here. Whichever of these two epiphanies tipped the scale of balance with you, determined just how long your stay in this polychromatic hothouse lasted. <br /> <br /> Despite wearing just a tank top and thin cotton pants I was perspiring profusely and I had only been in here for 10 minutes. So I had to stop hunting for photo opps and pull out my compact yet sizable microfiber towel (packed in my camera bag specifically for this exhibit), and dry off. By the 20 minute mark, I was sweating like a sumo wrestler inside a Turkish bath, and spent more time drying the sweat off myself and my camera than I did taking pictures. At this point the windows of opportunity where my equipment and I weren't drenched from my perspiration had shrunk to under two minutes in length. Fortunately this cute encounter took place during one of them.
  • DSC_6821 here little birdie birdie
  • dsc_6805 thanks for the leaf
  • dsc_7138 fishing day at the mere
  • dsc_7148 fishing day at the mere
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