Playing Around with Bokeh

I got a Canon EOS 600D for Christmas, so I had a little play around with the manual focus and some Christmas lights to create some bokeh.

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Porto, Portugal 2013

This summer from the 12-19th of July we went to Porto in Portugal. It was just a simple city break along with going to a few beaches. 

I did have a nice time, but I missed being in a place though where every local knows a good amount English and the weather was a little bit disappointing. It was cloudy all of the time, when it was in fact pretty sunny leaving some of us to become very burnt. 

Other than that, I enjoyed seeing everything and walking along listening to my audiobook.

NY // 07 - Staten Island

From the ghetto~ area, we took the Staten Island Ferry and saw the Statues of Liberty, Brooklyn Bridge and the glorious New York skyline in general.

NY // 06 - Ghetto/Subway/SoHo/Things

On our second to last day in New York, we took the Subway down to the Staten Island Ferry and took a boat across to the Island and saw the Brooklyn Bridge and the Statue of Liberty etc. (post on that coming soon)

The area we arrived in was quite a 'ghetto' area with a lot of signs of deprivation which I thought was a nice contrast and we then walked on to the SoHo area, where China Town and Little Italy was also located and did some more shopping.

I was really pleased with some of the photos I took whilst there, and they made a nice contribution to my photography exam project. As I was showing the negative contrasts, I experimented a bit with adding some gradients to the photos as well as doing a series of simply black and white photos to show the bleakness.

NY // 05 - Central Park

We didn't spend as much time as I wanted to in Central Park, maybe some other time. It was covered in snow from a few days ago, which made the area look very picturesque and beautiful. Additionally, it was a nice contrast between the nature in the park and the towering architecture on the border of the park. Either way it was still very beautiful.

I was also pretty impressed by the Apple Store bulding. It was just a glass, cuboid shaped building rising from the ground with a glowing apple logo being suspended, with an escalator in the centre of the building taking you down to the actual store. I don't know, I was just weirdly impressed by that and thought it was pretty cool.

NY // 04 - Museum Of Modern Art

On our second(ish) day we went to the Museum of Modern Art. My favourite exhibitions were definitely the illustratin/painting floors and the photography exhibition. I found the exhibition every inspiring, the composition of the photos were excellent and come of the photobooks/essays displayed were very interesting also. I enjoyed the painting exhibition because of the famous Vincent Van Gogh's and the 'Scream' paintings, it was quite a life experience to be able to see them. We spent about two hours in there and then we ended up getting a hot dog from a classic New York hot dog cart. 

I also made a montage video documenting my visit to the museum. You can check it out below:

NY // 03 - Grand Central Station

Grand Central Station was really magnificent and had lots of little shops and cafes to visit. The architecture is excellent and I really like the photos I've taken, as even though the people are out of focus it looks really effective. I miss this place.

NY // 02 - Empire State Of Mind

Due to a complication (which I won't go into), me and some friends ended up going to the Empire State on our last night. The views from the top are truly incredible and amazing. I was reminded of the quote "it's a hard climb to the top, but the view's amazing", or something similar to that. It was a brilliant way to end an amazing trip.