Week 25
June 27, 2016
Roosevelt Island
Circleline Boat Tour
Train In/Out: Fairfield, CT
Miles walked: 7.5
Camera: Olympus OM-D E-M1 with m.Zuiko 17mm f1.8, m.Zuiko 12-40mm PRO, E-PM2 with m.Zuiko 8mm fisheye PRO
Special "episode" of 52 Magic Mondays, I had 3 guests join me.! Today Ali came along with two other photographer friends; Ali, you may remember from Week 18 when we did night photography in Brooklyn. She and her friends happened to be coming to the city on a Monday and asked if I wanted to join them on a harbor lights boat cruise in the evening, so we combined that with a 52MM afternoon on Roosevelt Island.
I took this tram on a cold rainy winter day back on Week 12, which was my first (very brief) visit to Roosevelt Island. I liked the shadow of the tram on the pavement in this image and that you can just make out a police office in the shadow directing traffic.
Approaching the bridge, I could see a group of balloons tangled on top of the bridge structure (can't see it here)...
Visitor center captured with the fisheye lens. A little wonky but kinda cool. Tram support in the background along with the Queensboro Bridge and Manhattan on the far right.
Tram passing by under the Queensboro Bridge looking towards Manhattan.
Remnants of a smallpox hospital located at the south end of Roosevelt Island.
Shot through the fence.
Park at the south end...
Ali and I both thought this was beautiful but a little creepy with the floating head design. Figured the fisheye would make it even more exaggerated!
LOVED this quote.
The old Pepsi Cola sign in Queens.
Remnants of a lab on the island.
Beautiful pigeons.
They have a free bus that runs a loop around the island. We thought we could walk the entire island, but we were pressed for time so we jumped on the bus at the visitor center so we could see the lighthouse on the north end of the island. This construction worker qualifies for my Interesting Things... page. Carrying some fancy bent rebar.
Bus let us off at the Octagon Tower. We were intrigued by the name. It was an administrative building for a Lunatic Asylum. I've got to say, I've not heard the word "lunatic" in a long time.
We had to go inside...
Jackpot!
Really cool staircase inside. The building is now an apartment complex so we were only allowed in the lobby, but they didn't mind a bunch of photographers laying on their floor shooting! :)
Looking up to the white ceiling at the top.
Lighthouse at the north tip of the island. Boat going by added some spray to the left of the lighthouse.
Love all the curves from the fisheye lens.
Back on Manhattan, we are walking to the subway to go to the west side of Manhattan for our harbor cruise. This guy was really into hydration.
This looked like a restaurant out of Star Trek!
I think this is the first man-bun I've noticed in the city.
A bit of a story here. I thought this made an interesting (but sad) image because he was laying down and the sign makes it look like two people almost looking over his shoulder (guardian angels?). And when I (over) think about it, the word "Vice" is interesting as well.
I probably wouldn't have included this picture on my blog, however something interesting happened soon after I shot this pic...
This man stopped, pulled out two nicely composed containers of food and left them next to the sleeping man. I think his blue tote bag had a number of meals in it. My guess? He was coming from a restaurant he works at that donates leftovers to the homeless. As he walked by me, I looked him in the eye and quietly said "that was nice", he gave me a wink and a small smile and kept moving. Probably the kindest gesture I've seen from one person to another in my 6 months walking the city.
Aha! They do move those City Bikes around. And not with a Citi Bike. Maybe this will be a question on Jeapordy one day and now you know. ;)
On the Circleline boat for the Harbor Lights Cruise. We were there about 40 minutes before the cruise leaves and were just lucky to get a seat outside (front row, right in front of that overhang with red trim, not a great spot).
Everyone was sitting on the boat in these chairs looking rather glum. It was the oddest thing. No one was up looking around, not even much talking going on. Perhaps they were all tourists totally worn out by the day.
Next to us the Beast pulled in returning from its outing on the water. It travels 3 times as fast as the boat we were taking. Don't sign me up for that, I have no need for speed on the water.
We were told we were not allowed to stand up or move around during the harbor tour because we would block other people's view. So that made taking any pictures rather challenging, especially since we were in the front row with the window looking into the interior of the boat right in front of us. Not much of a view but we made the best of it. I'm including this photo because you can see the tall light pink building in the center of the photo that I talked about in Week 17 (Palazzo Chupi). It does stand out a bit from the water's view.
And the best tid-bit of the day was that the boat tour guy told us that a building in this area has a car elevator - you can bring your car up to your apartment and park it inside your livingspace. Wow.
Here's a video on this car-elevator building: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GV69G5v-A7g
FUNNIEST pic of the day. When we got on the boat, they made us stand in front of a green screen so they could take our photo. Ali didn't want to do it but they made us. I did "bunny ears" putting my arm behind Ali with 2 fingers up. THEY CROPPED THAT OUT! But the BEST part is that Ali gave the finger as they took the picture and you can clearly see that if you look at her hand (she's in the gray shirt). They couldn't crop that out, ha! We did not purchase the $35 package of photo keepsakes, by the way. We were in tears laughing when they brought out these pictures due to the cropping and finger (which was basicaly at the start of the cruise so they are printing and packaging this stuff FAST). Almost all of what they made got thrown out, no one was in a buying mood. Glum people are cheap. ;)
Brooklyn Bridge
Manhattan Bridge, a favorite shot of the day.
Hey, it's the Pepsi Cola sign again, only this time taken from the water. This was as far up as we went on the East River, but we could see Roosevelt Island ahead of us. Nice for the day to come full circle.
Using the art filters on my Olympus Camera since we were constantly moving - I knew I couldn't get any kind of super clear / sharp images due to motion so why not play with art filters. Love the light reflecting under the tall ship (which is kind of hard to make out in the photo).
It clouded up so no sunset shots for us, but the clouds do get dramatic looking with the art filters.
Back on land around 9pm. Walking to the subway.
Yo.
I love the guy's drawing, but I really like the guy in the white tank behind the drawing...giving me the eye.
I cheated and took this pic at 1:30pm when we arrived in NYC because I figured we would get back to Grand Central after 9pm and all the papers would be gone (I was correct).
Next Monday is Week 26...the half way point of my project! Wow.
Until the next Magic Monday! Feel free to say hello in the form below, I love hearing from you. :)
xo,
~MC
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