At the end of August I had an opportunity to go to New York City for a week and I did not hesitate to take advantage of it as it has been at the top of my list of places to visit. More than anything else it seemed to be more of an experience. This was apparent as soon as I stepped off the plane from Portland and into such a high energy environment. I met up with my sister Marie and brother inlaw Dan and we stayed at a pretty cool hotel in Midtown Manhatton (thanks to The Loft Salon). For Dan and I it was our first ever visit to the city. We talked about the overwhelming feeling we got by simply just looking around us, not to mention trying to come up with some sort of agenda for the next few days. Some things were planned like Maries training, a Yankee game, shopping, and the usual must see sights like The Statue Of Liberty, Times Square, and the madness of Lower Manhatton Island. That was all exciting and felt extremely touristy, like we were visiting Alcatraz or Fishermans Wharf (from a native Bay Area perspective). We all agreed we had to visit Ground Zero. It was hard not to lose get emotional when thinking about how crazy and horrific that day must've been.
On one of the mornings Marie had her training, Dan, my niece Caitlyn, and I toured New Yankee Stadium in The Bronx. It was pretty damn cool. It is truly a  baseball museum and has a feel as if the Yankee Gods are sitting in thrones in the clouds above looking down.  Later that night we went and caught a game with thousands of other hardcore Yankee fan lunatic New Yorkers. Yankee pride most definitely runs deep.
I spent a lot of time on my own in the city. I packed my camera and tripod around for miles and miles. I dont mind shopping but my sister and neice take that shit to a different level. Besides, I think most of my money went towards slices of cheese pizza and iced coffee. That is literally all that I consumed the entire time. Anyways, I enjoy spending my vacations firing away with my camera instead of the credit card. We took a walk across The Brooklyn Bridge at night and we were all very glad we did so as the view from there is stunning. As an after dark photographer, New York City is ideal. I love street scenes and they are endless there. World class and surreal actually. The highlight of my trip was seeing The Dakota Building. This was one item on my personal agenda that I had pre planned for years. It has a spooky aura to it at night as it sits on the edge of a dimly lit section of Cenral Park.  I grew up a huge John Lennon fan thanks to my mom and she made me call her and describe it as she has yet to visit it.
New York City is worldly, grand and electric. I cannot wait to return. I have worked hard since September on all of my photos and had to narrow what I included in the slideshow down from 500 to about 130 images. That task alone was extremely challenging.  I wanted to show them all. I tried to mix it up with some shots that I worked hard to get along with some fun snapshots to try and give an overall feel for the trip. It was especially challenging to find music that was long enough and had a good vibe to it because in the end thats what the trip was all about. I will provide a link to soon to an album of all the shots if interested. I hope you enjoy!
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