Central Park, Photography Business, Snow
February 19, 2010

Peter

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(Above: Peter frozen for a 13 second shot)

The wonderful thing about photography is that it makes you go into situations that you normally would miss.  The night of this blizzard last week, the couch and television looked very dry and inviting, but photography forced me to take that first step out of the door.  And once you're out the door it's all cake.

The bad thing about photography is that once you're there you're bogged down with all of this equipment and all of these tasks.  If the conditions are harsh it often keeps you from enjoying your surroundings, thinking about how mad you'll be if you don't get a couple of good shots.  And this was one of those situations, trying to set up the shot while keeping my camera dry, holding an umbrella with one hand and clumsily messing with the controls with frozen fingers, focusing futiley in the dark, and then picking up the camera and tripod and lugging it to another location to do it all over again.

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(Above: Peter doing something dumb)

But then along came Peter, a longtime friend who lives near the park and wanted to hang and go sledding.  When we first got to the park I was very task oriented, wanting to go to a number of places to get certain shots, while Peter tried to stop me a hundred times while he jumped in the snow and climbed over things.  At first it was a little annoying as it was slowing down my goal.

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(above: sledding on an inflatable mattress)

Then Peter started to break me down, in a good way.  After I got a couple of shots out of the way and my O.C.D. went down a bit, what he was doing looked like a lot of fun.  I began to see my rig as more of a hindrance than an asset.  So I joined him in sledding down the steps of the Bethesda Terrace with an inflatable mattress that we found lying around.

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So to get all philosophical, if you're not having fun taking a photo, put the camera down.  People don't want to see photos that you didn't enjoy taking and it's obvious when a photographer didn't enjoying taking a certain photograph.

And thank you Peter for getting me to go sledding and for holding my bag out of the snow.  You're welcome anytime I take photographs and I hope I'm welcome anytime you're jumping around on things.

This will probably be my last snow post for awhile, unless there is another blizzard ;)

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*If you like the photos in this post please help me spread the word by sharing. Thanks.



4 Comments for "Peter"
Blizzard Bro says:
February 19, 2010 12:33
Yo Man, that was a fun night, I'm glad my juvenile spirit wore you down a bit and you were able to join in the fun. Peter Doing Something Dumb was my favorite part, and if had been able to look at you, that pic would have been much cooler. You really made the snow in that 13 second shot look good....I think I kind of ruin the picture....
James Maher says:
February 19, 2010 12:41
Yeah don't worry I have a bunch more of that photo without you in it. That one just worked best for this post.
matt Kuykendall says:
February 20, 2010 06:51
James, great post; I love reading them, all the shots look great.
Williams says:
May 02, 2012 20:22
As far as I’m concerned the only way to photograph in NYC is in black and white. Your shots are really great and thanks for including the camera settings.