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.

NY // 01

I felt I should document my trip to New York 2 weeks ago in some form on this blog. So at 4am on a cold Tuesday morning we went to the airport and a few hours later we proceeded to get on the plane and 7 hours later we landed in New York. I was surprised by how it wasn't as cold as I thought it was going to be, it just kind of felt like Blackpool cold. By the time we went out it was about 6pm, so me and my friends explored Times Square and went to Forever 21. We then had Chinese and went back to the hotel for sleepies after a very long day.