New York - Day 7... - Rodney Campbell's Blog Rodney Campbell's Blog

New York – Day 7…

by Rodney Campbell on May.20, 2014, under Life, Photography

Continuing our exploration on day 7 we made our way up to 59th street and decided to have lunch in the legendary Plaza Hotel. Afterwards my wife and eldest daughter wanted to spend some time perusing the nearby flagship designer stores on 5th avenue (you know – Tiffany’s, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Sak’s and so on – you get the idea…)

This wasn’t sounding particularly appealing to myself or my two young ones so we decided to split up and we went off exploring by ourselves – first stop the flagship Apple store on 5th Avenue

Note: These images (especially the wider shots) look much better when larger – so click any of the images below to see larger versions in an inline overlay slideshow gallery viewer.

Perpetual Stairs

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 32 mm, 1/800 sec at f/5.6, ISO 100

and then the legendary toy store next door – FAO Schwarz

My girls hadn’t really yet seen any of Central Park so we decided to go exploring in the park from the south east corner. The first thing you come to is The Pond so here are two nice portrait views of the girls taken in opposite directions on opposites sides of The Pond

Crossing The Pond

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm, 1/800 sec at f/4, ISO 100

Manhattan Pond

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm, 1/800 sec at f/3.5, ISO 100

We then made our way down through the park (from the opposite side to my early mornings walk) to The Mall and the Bethesda Fountain (about 13 blocks walk)

The Long Walk

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 48 mm, 1/640 sec at f/3.2, ISO 100

Fountain

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm, 1/1000 sec at f/3.2, ISO 100

We’d arranged to meet the others at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) at 4PM. The MoMA is down between 54th and 53rd street so not liking the idea of another long walk from where we were in the park on 72nd street we headed across to 5th ave and caught a bus :). Apparently the MoMA has free entry from 4PM on Fridays (UNIQLO Free Friday Nights) so as it was friday and we were here…

Little did we know that the queue for free entry was going to be MASSIVE – it literally went from the door on 54th street down the whole block to 5th avenue and along that block to 53rd street and then along 53rd street. I was a little worried we weren’t going to get a ticket and get in however the people there said everyone got in (eventually) :). The line actually moved very quickly and we soon made it to the front and got our tickets (my wife and eldest daughter still hadn’t arrived and were still shopping so we got two extras)

The place was absolutely jam packed – you could barely move inside – the cons of attending at a time when entry is free. The museum however was amazing – the level of incredibly famous artists and art works was awesome – not that my two young daughters cared that much – they were probably happiest playing Space Invaders in the retro section :). Another thing was that you could get right up to the art with no barriers blocking access or glass in front of the works

Still they came with me to see the incredible works

There are signs in many areas of the MoMA indicating not to take photos (lots of areas where you can as well), but with literally thousands of people packed in there almost everyone was taking photos of everything with their phones and cameras and the security there didn’t seem concerned (other than to tell people not to touch the art and not to use flash). There were literally tons of people standing right in front of each artwork with their phones taking full screen images of just the painting and of course those taking photos of themselves or others with the art

So who could resist a shot with my daughter and a very famous Van Gogh

The Starry Night