St. George terminal at dawn
This tale is lengthy to the extreme. So for the majority of you who no doubt prefer a story that is short and to the point, as opposed to the long drawn out version which follows, then here you go - Saw this scene. By the time I acquired the equipment and skill to capture it, the scene changed dramatically many times. I eventually had to settle for this one some 30 years later. And there you have it. That's the whole story nice and concise.
Now if on the other hand you may be stuck at the DMV, or the airport or your in Penn Station and the LIRR is having signal troubles yet AGAIN, or your just sitting at home relaxing on the couch and want something to read and for some reason your oddly curious of how this shot unfolded step by step, then by all means get comfortable and read on.
So I've lived here on Staten island for over 30 years now, and from whichever residence I've called home I've walked to the ferry on my trips to work for the majority of it. I've traveled many routes to get there each morning, taking different ones that let me stroll through the nicer residential sections when I wasn't in a rush, or the quickest routes when I was. Most though certainly not all ended with me crossing Richmond terrace in front City Hall and like so many other Staten islanders coming from this direction, walking through the bus terminal entrance as it's the most direct route to the ferry terminal for we ferry riders coming this way.
Now over these past 3 decades this area has taken quite a change in appearance as few parts of the terminal look exactly as it did when I first moved here in 87'. One thing that was unchanging however was the nice sweeping view entering the terminal this way gave me, on clearer mornings of the bay all the way from the Verrazano bridge on my right to Jersey City on my left. Some mornings at sunrise the sweeping view was jaw droppingly stunning.
But several of those years encapsulated the time when I had put photography on hold while my many other life tasks took center stage. Eventually those times passed however and as one stunning sunrise after another started to pile up on top of each other, not surprisingly my photographic itch over this morning scene got scratched. However this was by FAR the most sweeping scene I had ever thought of capturing, and as of yet I hadn't even tried my first attempt at panoramic scenes, had no panoramic gear, and so I had no way to ever capture it. But the parade of memorable sunrises that kept passing in front of my eyes did cause me to dream of what I'd do if I could capture this scene one day.
I knew that more or less I would want to start the scene with the early morning sun rays bouncing off the skyscrapers in New Jersey on the left and end it with the Verrazano bridge on the right. But my original idea for where to stand for this shot was from the safety and convenience of the pedestrian walkway on the far left of the terminal entrance. Unfortunately several significant changes to the terminal completely ruined the composition from that spot. So I would have to find a new one.
Now where else could I possibly set up my tripod for this shot and not get run over by one of the many buses exiting the bus ramps right in the middle of the shot whilst doing so, I wondered. The first answer in my head was easy - nowhere. But as I was still eons away from my first successful panoramic attempt anyway, the concern over my potential bus fatality while stubbornly attempting to still capture this scene seemed to be moot. So the years passed and I busied myself capturing hundreds of other scenes around the city that were far less problematic.
In time I acquired my first full framed DSLR and all the requisite panoramic gear to go with it (side note - one does not need a full framed DSLR to capture professional art galley worthy panoramic scenes, and I have several lovely shots taken with my cropped sensor nikon here on SmugMug to prove it. But if your going to go big, go with the best if you can afford it, and a great full framed camera will beat an equally great cropped sensor one for scenic shots most every time), but I digress.
So after watching numerous podcasts on YouTube on the subject I started taking panoramic shots, and had great success shooting many of them. Some scenes were sweeping multi row pano's. Some of the Jpeg files from them were over 100 megabytes, the scenes were so massive in scope. So no surprise with all these panoramic successes eventually my mind turned back towards the ferry terminal, and now I knew I had the expertise to capture this scene, if I could map out all the obstacles first, and figure out the answer to each one, then the shot, large in scope as it was, was definitely do-able.
Quite a lot had changed about this scene in the intervening years between my casually contemplating this shot and now seriously planning to photograph it. For one the city put up a long large fence all along the walkway on the far right where the buses enter, that would only detract from my scene ascetically. Taking the shot at dawn would help minimize its negative effects, but it was sure to interfere with the enjoyable view of the bridge from this viewing spot none the less and I was going to have to find a way to make up for that, though at the time I wasn't exactly sure how I was going to do this.
Now on the plus side of the ledger, the city added four large lighted letters, "A through D" for each of the four bus ramps and they stood out marvelously on bright clear red and blue sunrises, and in fact were the final thing that pushed me to really draw up a workable plan to capture this scene. I loved how attractive these large letters were in the pre dawn light. They did puzzle me though.
As it was obvious the powers that be wanted pedestrian coming from my route, for safety sake, to enter the terminal through the afore mentioned walkway on the far left which would take you into the terminal itself. From there then you'd walk up to whichever bus ramp you needed from inside. Each had an up ramp clearly marked next to their entrance, A through D as well. The lit letters outside would be ignored by everyone coming up these ramps as the signs inside the terminal already told you what ramp you were walking up, and I never in all these years ever looked at them coming up this way, if they were even visible from this direction at all. The only use I could think of for them was for people doing just what the city didn't want them to do - cross the road the buses take to exit the terminal in order to quickly enter the ramp you want directly, rather than the long circuitous safe route.
But that oddity was best left for city planners and philosophers to ponder. For artists like myself interested in capturing this constantly evolving urban vista it was a marvelous addition, as several of the other changes detracted from what intrigued me in the first place about this scene and without this one, I'm not sure I would have put forth the effort needed to come up with a viable plan to capture this prickly project.
Like I mentioned earlier, it was quite some time - years in fact before I actually decided to draw up a workable plan to photograph the terminal, and there were still other changes to this view yet to come. Recall me saying I wanted to start this scene on the left with the skyscrapers in New Jersey. When the sun started to rise on a clear morning the tall buildings looked quite nice, and they were adding new skyscrapers to Jersey City all the time. And even with the construction of the massive decorative arch that reaches into the sky here at St. George the skyscrapers were still visible behind it. I just had to find the right new place to stand to frame them properly inside the arch if the muse inside my head told me it would be necessary in order to draw your eye to them better. Well in conjunction with the sweeping changes to the area due to the proposed building of the giant wheel like the one in London, this slice of the terminal got a complete renovation too.
One day walking into the terminal I saw construction go up that when done would completely blocked my view of Jersey City. By now I had probably started taking pano's and was semi serious about this one. But this construction was a positive eye sore, so I was going to have to wait it out and see what this part of my proposed scene looked like once whatever construction this was was complete. So instead I contemplated on the - where else to stand problem, and what time of year and day to come here once the construction was complete. And all that was going to be a tough nut to crack unto itself. For the Staten Island MTA system is quite unique compared to the rest of the city.
When it comes to the rest of the cities buses, they originate from many different locations and travel off to many others. When I prepared to capture my shot of City Hall in lower Manhattan, which you can see nearer the beginning of this gallery, I also had to contend with buses, but there where only a few of them that served that stop. Staten island has a completely different structure. Instead of the buses originating from many locations and thereby spreading them out, they start from just two, and the ferry terminal at St. George holds the lions share. So even on off hours buses are a constant problem for wherever I was likely going to have to stand in order to capture the scene as it was formulating in my head.
As my original plan to stand on the walkway was now scuttled I now hoped to be able to somehow set my camera up right across from there on a low stone wall that ran along the road exit out of the terminal. I hoped miraculously that the wall would be tall enough with my tripod up against it to give a clear view of the bridge. So for sometime as the construction on the left progressed I entered the terminal along this walkway just to get an idea of the view from this spot.
I wasn't sure if shooting from here would be too far back, or too low. But I still wasn't sure what the left corner of this shot would look like anyway and if I would want to include it once construction was finished. So my strolls along the wall never lasted that long or were ever that serious, and instead were punctuated by short stops that lasted for 5 or 10 seconds as I bobbed my head up and down, left and right backwards and forwards a few steps, just trying to quickly see if a spot somewhere here would yield me a great spot to capture all the things that I still wanted to put in this scene. If it did I might get away with quickly shooting here, as the area around this wall has those painted yellow stripes, that all the vehicular traffic tried to avoid, and if I was fast enough on a slow and sleepy Sunday morning the police might let me be.
In the end all this turned out to be hopelessly wishful thinking, but because standing in the middle of the road where the voice in the back of my head kept telling me I needed to now be was so unappealing, for months I kept at it anyway.
Probably by late 2018 the construction was far enough along that I could at least have an idea what the left side of my potential scene might look like when it was done. Sadly my cherished view of Jersey City from this spot was now sure to be lost to me forever in this pano, but I was still certain I could make this scene work none the less (don't ask me why I remained so stubborn after all these changes and problems). So it was finally time to get serious and stop guessing about where to stand. I needed to either find a new spot or put this dream to a merciful end.
So one day off on the weekend when foot and car traffic would be minimal, I dragged myself out of bed before sunrise and got on a bus to the ferry. I took with me my full framed camera, my wide angle zoom that would cover any of the focal lengths I was likely to use, and some empty boxes - one of my first potential problem solvers. My plan when I was finally going to actually shoot this scene would be to bring a sturdy empty box or two inside each other for added strength (thanks to Amazon I always have lots of sizes in my basement to choose from waiting to be bundled and tossed). Put a weight in it to keep any wind from blowing it about, and sit it on the wall then put one of my mini tabletop tripods on it and take the pano that way. Far FAR from ideal, but it would allow me to pretty much avoid bus and cab traffic, thereby not causing policeman to walk up and end my shot before it began.
I also decided for certain that I would only shoot this pano on a Sunday morning to further reduce the would be car as well as foot traffic that would be moving around me and passing constantly in front of the camera. Fortunately I had observed definitively by now that the best time to capture the most colorful sky for this particular scene was at dawn, at least 15 to 20 minutes before the sun rose over the Brooklyn skyline. Coming this early in the morning would almost eliminate all foot traffic as most Staten Islanders that early on a Sunday would be asleep. And while Saturday would be good enough for this task just as well, that pesky bus traffic needed Sunday to abate it, as even this early on a Saturday still yielded too many buses, do to that unique concentration of buses here on the island.
When I got off the bus I set the box on top of the wall and then held the camera up as high as I could theoretically get it with my mini tripod. It wasn't high enough. The bridge, the Brooklyn skyline, all cut off from view. Now that meant a normal tripod had to be used, and now I slowly deliberately covered every square foot of this walkway within the yellow safety stripes looking for an ideal spot that would allow me to take in everything I wanted. There were many artistic issues with every place I chose.
Each new spot would correct one problem, and cause two new ones. After 5 minutes or so of this I was forced to face the reality I probably knew from the first place. I needed to set up my tripod in the road period. Any other spot and I was just kidding myself, for the composition would get totally trashed.
From years of careful observation I knew what parts of the road the buses never used no matter what ramp they departed from ( further proof I probably knew all along I'd end up on the road somewhere if I wanted to get this shot). So I walked all along this swath of road that straddled the wall that you see on the far right of this shot.
Eventually I found a spot that would let me take everything in that I wanted to composition-ally and still be a good 10 feet or more away from any buses potential path that early on a Sunday at the same time. That alone was a minor miracle, as for the longest time I was almost certain no such spot existed where I could both get a good composition and not become a danger to public safety at the same time. The rest of the issues would be a piece of cake after that.
I decided I'd use my 35mm wide angle in vertical format for the shot as it would be a good compromise, allowing me to capture the entire scene in one row and only need about 5 or 6 shots to do it. That would let me take 2 or 3 sequences of shots in a minute or two and get out fast, and speed was utmost in my mind, as a long stay here would probably bring me headaches I'd rather not deal with.
At home I practiced my exact setup a few times, so that when the day came to capture this pano I would be able to set up my rig, capture my sequence of shots, and pack my gear back up in record time, minimizing the chance for something bad to happen while shooting. Now all that was left was to wait for a Sunday morning when I was off, and an appealing sunrise forecast to sync up along with it. I was not overly surprised that it took a few months for this to happen, and there was still one other thing I had to deal with to finally capture this scene.
It was important that nothing stand in between my position and the Verrazano bridge when I took this shot. The fence was already bad enough, so a parked vehicle in between myself and the bridge on top of that would just kill the whole scene . In fact anything, a police motorcycle, even something low to the ground that didn't block the view of the bridge would still be a negative element that would rob the scene of it's magic. Cars, buses and trucks park along this empty stretch of parking lot all the time. So this was definitely going to be another issue I'd have to deal with.
I'm guessing I probably started checking the weather reports for potentially good sunrises in late spring of 2019. But it probably wasn't until early July before the weatherman's forecast of good sunrise conditions matched up with one of my Sunday's off. Happily I packed up my gear the night before and hopped on a bus headed for the ferry before sunrise the next morning.
Turned out the sky merely only looked OK as I gazed out the bus window on the way to the ferry, but there was still time for it to improve, as lighting this early occasionally can change dramatically, but as the bus approached the terminal I could see several vehicles parked right there by the back wall that would completely block my view of the bridge from where I needed to stand. So the lack of dazzling sky was immaterial, and I got off the bus at the terminal then got right back on a bus headed back out again, went home and went right back to bed.
Many weeks passed before another opportunity presented itself, and now the calender had already turned to August. Drab sunrises or vehicles parked along the side continued to scuttle chance after chance, and September was right around the corner. At that point things were going to get tricky. In September, by the 2nd week for sure the jewel weed at Clove Lakes would be in full bloom, and with it the return of the hummingbirds I so coveted photographing. I finally had two high quality telephoto zooms with autofocus good enough to keep up with the tiny little guys, and capturing them while the flowers were in bloom superseded any other photographic desire I had. And by the time it ended, it would probably be late September. The mornings would start to get increasingly cold, and worse being right near the bay, the wind blowing about would be a serious concern, as many of my attempts at pano's of Manhattan in the past were ruined because the fierce winds blowing caused vibrations in my camera that nothing could eliminate.
So when this first Sunday of September rolled around, and I was scheduled to be off, and the weatherman predicted a positive forecast for my pano, I packed my gear up, and hoped real hard that this would be the day.
As the bus approached the ferry I saw the sky was indeed very very good. A bit too colorful and busy in fact, for a simple red and blue sky would make the 4 lighted letters stand out best, and this sky was a bit too flashy for that, but there were no vehicles parked on the side so finally after 3 or 4 months of searching and years of dreaming, I was grabbing this pano come hell or high water.
Quickly exiting the bus I set up my gear and immediately started capturing my sequences of shots. One thing new about the scene I liked was the dawn colors reflecting off the new Nike store all the way on the left, and I made sure to end each sequence with it in the shot. As I did out of the corner of my eye driving past the Nike store I saw a police car go by. The policeman looked my way and the car kept on going. I chose my spot well. If the police deemed I was a danger to safety by being too close to the bus paths, they would have made a bee line for me. But instead they went off into the distance and left me alone.
My practice at home had me so well prepared to quickly shoot, that by the first sign of the sun peaking its' head over Brooklyn I had captured my 7th sequence, and so I packed up my gear and headed home. Looking at my shots in Lightroom on my computer, I saw the sky indeed was too busy to allow those wonderful ramp lights to stand out. However the colors in the sky from east to west, was simply fabulous, and more than made up for that. And the sky over the bridge was particularly colorful making up for the Verrazano bridge being obscured by that fence.
Now my original dream composition starting with the lamp lights on the walkway leading your eye naturally to the skyscrapers in Jersey City would have definitely been superior to this one, as this composition I ended up using emphasizes the bus ports too much for my tastes, however it is certainly a nice shot nonetheless. And with any luck I'm not the only photographer on the island inspired by this scene as they came to work each morning so many years ago. If they had the equipment and know how, they've captured that very panorama already.
And if your one of the people working for the city who talked them into putting those four large letters over the four bus ramps. This panorama is for you, for I probably wouldn't have taken this shot without them.
Staten Island ferry terminalsummerscenicStaten IslandNYCdawnpanoramasld 12
