Category — Site Authors

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Note: Photo is incorrectly labeled NY Life Building, it is in fact the Met Life Tower, Sorry!

New York City is full of tall buildings, historic landmarks and generally well-known points of interest; it has everything one can think of, and then some. Yet amidst the hustle, and bustle, and grandness that Manhattan has to offer, certain things are often left ignored. These things, often trite or commonplace usually have no significance in being overlooked; it struck me however that one oft-unnoticed thing happens to be the Flag of the United States of America. Of all things, our country’s flag is probably the greatest symbol of unity of some 300-plus million Americans; it seems that at moments of hardship for our country, flags seem to pop up everywhere, at most other times though, their prevalence dwindles. Yet, their presence is undeniable, so for my street photography project, I set out to visit different points of Manhattan in search of the American flag.

In my twelve-photo set, the one shared theme throughout is not only the capturing of the American flag, but doing so within the larger scope of more recognizable places throughout the City. I tried to accomplish this (in some of the photos) by entirely shifting the focus off of the world renowned buildings onto the American flags seen in the photos. Part of the irony that hopefully my photos gave off was the fact that normally when one gazes at the Empire State Building, or the Radio City Music Hall, one’s attention is focused onto the building itself, however in my photographs, the center of attention is always on the American flag, contrary to how one may view the scene in real life.

The idea for the set came to me several weeks ago, and was solidified as I walked down the parade route of the Veterans Day Parade. However unnoticed the flags may be, one thing was obviously apparent: they happen to be everywhere in the city. Up and down the streets, lining parks, placed on the sides, tops and bases of buildings, the ‘Stars and Stripes’ can be seen flying in all their glory. For something so present in the city (and in many cases so large), it amazes me that so often one can pass them by without noticing our country’s most widely recognized symbol. Whatever the case, I understood that the flags were there and I set out to capture them in various scenes.

Upon deciding on the theme, the actual part of taking the pictures was pretty simple. It just so happens that at most points of national achievement or pride, or buildings of significance, the American flag is proudly flown. Prior to taking any photos (other than three test ones), I did some research online to find out what buildings offered the best angles with American flags in view, I compiled a list of about fifteen places that I thought offered the best possibilities for my set. Taking the pictures themselves turned out to be the easy part, as I soon realized though, several elements were working against me.

As is often the case in Manhattan, scaffolding caused more problems than one in my photographic endeavors. Its presence on desired buildings, such as the Chrysler Building forced me to reevaluate my options and ultimately find new angles to shoot with. While not terrible, many of the resultant shots were not the one’s originally intended. A major case in point was my experience in Rockefeller Center.  In preparing for their annual Christmas Tree, they had set up level upon level of scaffolding both around the tree and around the famous golden statue lining the ice rink. Certainly not anticipated, my plan had to be entirely redrawn, and instead I had to settle for a nice photo of 30 Rock. Apart from their unattractiveness, the temporary structures also were troublesome in that they blocked out shots from further away.

Yet, construction scheduling ultimately ended up being secondary to the main problem that was ‘wind conditions’. Nobody likes to look at a flag when it is simply wrapped around a pole, so in many scenarios I forced either to settle for lesser desired shots, or minutes of waiting for the wind to get it right. In the end, I hope that I got the majority of the photos ‘in action.’

After taking all of the photos, I made the decision to digitally edit several of them in ways that my camera could not originally accomplish. In doing so, I sought to bring the focus onto the flags, so in many instances it is the only clear thing in the photograph. That being said, one will notice that after zooming in on the photos to the umpteenth degree that I ultimately sacrificed the integrity of the photo for the image that I had created in my mind. If viewed though in the intended dimensions, one cannot notice this, and they can be appreciated as they are hoped to be.

In setting out to capture the American flag, I set out to encapsulate not only the ‘Stars and Stripes’ themselves but the values and significance that lies underneath. In many instances, the American flag is not the only symbol of our country, but instead is joined by the likes of the Empire State Building or Times Square. Hopefully, my collection can justly show both.  Enjoy.

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At any one moment there are thousands of bags of garbage, trashcans, and dumpsters strayed across New York City. Endless piles of black bags pile up along the sidewalk, green cans stand at every corner, and dumpsters stalk the city’s alleyways. Even though garbage is all around us people try to avoid it at all costs.  Whenever a tourist, a magazine, or a native describes NY they almost always leave out the huge role that garbage plays in the city’s look, smell, and sound. The glistening bags, the roar of the garbage trucks, and the garbage’s subtle smells are ignored or avoided by the majority of pedestrians. This is why I chose garbage as my theme; in order portray garbage in a new light, to show people the hidden beauty of the most reviled and most omnipresent substance in the city.

In order to kill two birds with one stone I decided that I would take most of my pictures of garbage while I walked from Baruch to Grand Central, so that I could take the seven train home. I would look down every street, and if I found an interesting trashcan or pile of garbage I would snap some pictures using different angles. I took some other pictures in the 17 Lex building at Baruch, Flushing, Grand Central Station, and my house. It turned out that only the pictures I took in the 17 Lex building would make the cut, along with the rest of the pictures I took on my walk.

I ended up taking over one hundred photos of garbage. What followed was a very selective process of elimination. I chose the photos, which I thought, had the most creative potential. After the selection process was over I had fourteen raw photos. I took these photos and edited them all extensively. Since my theme was more about garbage in general, and not a particular style I was able to change up the style of my photos. I knew from the start that I wanted a photo with a really high aspect ratio. I think that two of my photos succeed at this. The first thing I did with each photo was crop it, so that I could get the best image out of the picture I wanted. Then I would adjust the contrast, saturation, exposure, definition, etc. I would adjust the photo until I achieved the desired affect. This varied from photo to photo; sometimes I wanted the whole photo to be saturated with color, while for other photos I would leave no color at all.

After I edited each photo I looked all of them over and then decided which two I would delete, since I would only have twelve photos in the final theme. I chose the captions using the same method as someone who takes a Rorschach test, by using the first thing that came into my mind. What I tried to accomplish, as a whole, was to illustrate how garbage was everywhere, as well as to show that, sometimes, garbage can look kind of nice.

Freshman year in college is an exciting time because you get to decide who you are. Everyone tells you that these are the years that you will “find yourself,” and it’s the chance to get a fresh start and shed your image from high school if it was unfavorable. Many people identify themselves by the clothes they wear, the people they hang out with, or their interests and hobbies. Psychology gives us Eyesnck’s personality assessment which claims that everyone fits somewhere on these two scales: introversion-extroversion, and stability-instability. Your rating on these two factors can tell a person about the nature of their personality and list many personality traits that are typical of that type. I classified myself as a stable introvert: which typically means calm, even-tempered, reliable, controlled, peaceful, thoughtful, careful, passive. I found these results pretty accurate.

This weekend, I found an entirely different way that people identify their personality types by: my dad calls it Beatle Psychology. The Beatles are relatable to any age group, but I didn’t realize how far our culture’s fascination with them went. Apparently everyone will identify more with one of the Beatles and who your favorite Beatle is says a lot about the type of personality you have. If you identify most with John, you’re “the smart one,” if its Paul, you’re “the cute one,” if you like Ringo the most, you’re “the funny one,” and if it’s George you’re “the shy one.” I can’t imagine this being even mildly accurate for most people, but to each his own. Which Beatle are you?

Quorum sensing is the unbelievable process in which bacteria, who have no nervous system whatsoever, are able to communicate with each other. Bacteria are single celled organism, but don’t be fooled, they are as diverse, some would say more diverse, than all of the eukaryotes combined, (plants, animals, etc). For hundreds of years scientists thought that bacteria acted as individuals, separately from each other. In fact this is not the case at all, almost everything bacteria do is based on all the other bacteria around them. They are able to do this by releasing a certain chemical into the surrounding environment. Normally these chemicals would be dispersed into the environment and forgotten, but if there are a lot, I mean A LOT, of bacteria in the surrounding environment all these chemicals start to build up. When the amount of the chemical in the environment reaches a certain concentration proportional to the number of bacteria, the bacteria react to this and, all at once, carry out a certain task.

For example a bacterium might want to invade all the cells in your lungs in order to reproduce more efficiently and kill you, but it knows for a fact that it can’t do this on its own. This is because your immune system would be able to stop it before it even had a chance to munch on your delicious endosomes, or whatever it wants to invade and destroy. So instead of going on a suicide mission the bacterium decides to lay back, and stay cool for a little while, build up it’s numbers first. Eventually the bacterium will reproduce until maybe one day, if everything goes as planned, it reaches a population that would be impossible for your immune system to contain. Then, out of nowhere, they attack and kill you. If the bacterium had acted on its own your body would have killed it and then memorized what it looked like, so that if it ever came back it could be dealt with more efficiently. But now, because it was smart and waited for some back up, it can effectively invade your body with the help of its large family.

Obviously bacteria don’t only use quorum sensing for killing humans, they use it for hundreds, if not thousands of things. Each different kind of bacteria is like its own culture, with its own chemicals and proportions used for quorum sensing. Every single bacterium knows when it’s supposed to act and doesn’t question it. They have no leaders; they act as one, a single cohesive group.

Quorum sensing is great for us humans too. A massive amount of our body weight is bacteria, friendly organisms, and if we didn’t have them we wouldn’t be able to carry out some of our most basic processes. Not only that, but, anyone that has studied history knows that by understanding another nation’s culture one can more easily manipulate and eventually destroy that culture/nation. We can do the same thing to pathogenic bacteria, now that we know their secrets. We can create inhibitors (chemicals that look like the ones the bacteria use for quorum sensing), which prevent a bacterium from knowing how many other bacteria there are around them. It is the equivalent of putting a blindfold on everyone in Grand Central.

http://biofilmbook.hypertextbookshop.com/public_version/artifacts/images/illustrations/quorumSensing.jpg

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Sometimes I feel like I’m cheated out of the Fall season. Like a ballerina, she flutters onstage and whirls off so quickly, before I even get to watch her dance. School starts, and before I know it, it’s twenty below zero, the grass is frozen solid, and my favorite tree is naked, shivering in the cold. It happens every year, sometime mid-November. I turn around and she is gone. She escapes, stealing all the color with her, and leaving her evil winter twin to take the reign.

This year, I beat her to it. I met her onstage, and instead of staying in my seat, I swirled and twirled out of my chair and got right on stage to waltz with her. I promenaded along her rainbow foliage, pausing every so often to get snapshot of her beauty. Her radiant leaves seemed to spell R-O-Y-G-B-I-V across the azure sky.

Fall danced so brilliantly for me this year. I guess that was good timing on my part that I caught her midstep. In my Fall photo shoot, I captured the natural decor lining the streets of New York. Perspective changes from photo to photo: in some, I zoom in on her vivid hues; in others I give her room to breathe (and dance).  I try out all the different sections of the theater, trying to get different view of the dancer on the stage. I watched the Fall dancer from different angles.

Each screen shot in my collection accents the season’s colors. But in all of them, the color shimmies around the streets of my neighborhood, skipping around the bends, and twirling down the hills. Fire-engine reds and sun-kissed yellows and burnt auburns and gleaming greens make up the rainbow of Fall. This year I did better than a box seat;  I got up and danced in the aisles.

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While New York City is known for its impressive skyline and bustling streets, I always felt that Central Park provided a refreshing view of the city’s beauty. In turn, I attempted to highlight nature’s aesthetic power in my collection of photographs, called “Hidden Treasure.” At first, I thought I might try to show how equally appealing the skyscrapers and the trees were. In the photograph below, for example, both the city and nature seem to share the spotlight.

However, I realized that this was not the type of image or idea that I wanted to portray. Instead, I wanted to recreate the feeling that I get when I am in Central Park. I noticed that in this particular park, the vibrant greens of the spring and summer trees and the iridescent leaves of the fall make the view of the city more enchanting. At times, I even feel that nature’s beauty is so overwhelming that it outshines the impressive glistening skyline. In several of my photographs, the large trees and their leaves cover a great deal of the buildings. In this sense, my title, “hidden treasure” refers to the portions and details of the city’s architecture that are not seen in my pictures. At the same time, my collection’s name also refers nature’s presence in the city, which is often overlooked by tourists and even New Yorkers.

Once I had decided on this topic, I immediately encountered a major challenge: trying to capture a good quality image. When I first attempted to take pictures with my relatively old phone camera, I was sorely disappointed with the results. I was under the impression that my vision and ideas would compensate for my outdated camera, but the photos I took were not sharp and came out rather dull. During my second and last attempt, however, I borrowed my sister’s digital camera, which made all the difference. I realized that although the camera itself is not the only ingredient to a successful photograph, it still plays a significant role in producing a desired image.

When I finally began to snap some photographs, I did not limit myself to two or three shots of the same image. In fact, I took some five or six pictures of each scene to try out slightly different angles and experiment with the lighting and zooming. I knew this would provide me with plenty of options to choose from for the project. I did not, however, anticipate another problem to emerge from this favor I thought I was doing for myself.

As I was evaluating all the images I had gathered from my day’s photography adventure, I was overwhelmed with over one hundred images. While it was easy to eliminate certain photographs from my project, I was often torn between two or three very similar, yet distinct images. Admittedly, it was a headache to stare at the same photographs over and over again before I came to a decision, but I think I was better off having different options, rather than just being stuck to one. Although I would have never thought to try out photography, my endeavors to capture different views of nature in Central Park have allowed me to explore a new artistic outlet.

Most of us can say that we experience many cultural mixes very often in our lives. For some of us, these encounters with different cultures come as often as every day; but how many of us can proudly say that we were the ones creating these encounters?

In the eighth grade, I started getting really involved in music; particularly electronica. Radio538.nl (pronounced five-three-acht punt en el) took over the Z-100’s and Hot 97’s of my life, and I was immersed in the worlds of trance, house, and techno. I also thought it would be really cool to be a DJ, and had a fair amount of musical background, so I combined my two hobbies into one super-hobby – a trance producer.

My obsession with trance music lasted for a couple of years, and in those years, I released some really awesome tracks, but alas, my career never kicked off. My brother told me that there was no future in DJ-ing, and I was never going to be good enough to rival Tiesto and Paul van Dyke, who were my idols. Had conversation taken place now, I would have taken it as a challenge and continued my pursuit of fame and glory. Alas, my experiences mixing music from countries all over the world ended during my Freshman year of high school when I gave up hope and lost inspiration. I still listen to electronica, and even mess around with mixers and turntables from time to time, so I want to hear your opinion – should I pursue my passion in music and go professional, or just accept it as a hobby?

Eternal Sunlight by DJ Infrared

Crash Course by DJ Infrared

E3 Mix by DJ Infrared

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Mother Nature Say Hello to New York

As we all take our seats, I look around the room to see familiar faces. I see my classmates from IDC, a few friends from high school, and Professor Bernstein talking to a main in jeans and a yellow button-down. He looked like Richard Price, but I knew that this could not be the case, because Price would have to be really dressed up. I kept looking for the author of Lush Life, but gave up after a few moments of no success.

It came as a great surprise to me when Richard Price was asked to come to the stage, and that man in the yellow button-down came up. In an atmosphere where everyone tried so hard to look nice, the most important man in the room was wearing casual clothes. It became quite clear to me very quickly that this man tries hard to impress no one with his looks. I greatly admired that his values rested in impressing his audience with his rhetoric, and not his presentation. Momentarily, he started his reading of a chapter from Lush Life. We read this same chapter in class, so the ending was spoiled in a sense, but Price still managed to hold my attention. He was a very good reader, and I noticed some key differences between the way he read his story, and the way I read it for the first time. Following the reading of the excerpt from Lush Life, Price read an excerpt from his latest work, which featured the repetition of the word “God” at the end of every sentence. It started off as a humorous piece, but quickly became too repetitive and predictive.

Then came the questions. There were only two types of questions asked. The majority of them focused on how Price writes, and it was obvious that he was getting annoyed at these questions. “Write about what you know” seemed to be the answer to most of the questions in this category. The other questions were about the police encounters and how he knew so much about them. Admitting that he had some connections to the police departments in the tri-state, Price answered them all with a hint of pride.

Pride seems like a characteristic that many people take too far nowadays, turning it into arrogance. Price, being modest about his achievements, appealed to me greatly, and I admired his excellent writing skills. “Tell me another one” was not just a sentence that his niece kept telling him, but a line that stuck with me for a long time, serving as my goal when writing captivating stories. Of course, I cannot capture an audience’s attention as well as a renown author, but by adopting his style and techniques, I might come close one day.