Tunnel

I just wanted to post this picture I took last night. I came across this ridiculously long subway entrance. The art on the walls may or may not be graffiti--I don't really know. Some parts of the tunnel had actual art sketches on the wall, but it blended in with the walls so well that you could barely see it. Anyway, the picture is slightly off-center. I was standing just left of the middle of the tunnel because there was a swarm of people right behind me and I was trying not to block the tunnel. But the lights weren't flush with the piping either, so it makes it look a little bit "off."

Rain

The weather is starting to get a little nicer here in NYC, and I've been itching to take a lot of pictures. So in the past couple of weeks, I've taken somewhere in the neighborhood of 600 pictures. I did get a flickr account (http://www.flickr.com/photos/jon_foto if you're interested), and I've been having fun uploading. I think I've only been able to get like 25 pictures up (it takes awhile to upload), but I'll be trying to update it frequently.

So these are just a couple of pictures I took earlier today. The subway ran a little faster than normal, so I had half an hour to kill before class. I thought I'd take a stroll through Washington Square Park, since it tends to deserted whenever it rains.

I wanted to take some pictures of the chess tables, but that part of the park is closed due to construction. So I took some pictures of these benches instead. I've really been wanting to take more black & white pictures lately, and I'm trying to "train" my eye to see more tones and textures, and to work a little harder with composition.

So it's kind of random to show a picture of a half-eaten fruit, but I accidentally scared away the squirrel that had been happily feasting away--you can see some of the scraps on the bench from the squirrel had been eating.

Meh, just a bicycle. I was going to play around with composition a little more here, but I was standing in the rain and I was starting to get cold--

Sorry this post is kind of short--I'll be posting more later this week, and hopefully some more pictures. I don't have work for a week and a half because the middle school where I work is on spring break, so I'll have plenty of time to explore different parts of the city.

Spring Break

Well, I don't know how much of a coincidence this really is, but I realized that the last time I wrote, BYU had just been beaten by TCU in football. And last night, the men's basketball team lost to Kansas State. I don't even know how the game was--as much of a fan of BYU as I am, I was actually watching Wicked on Broadway, 4th row. But hey, at least they made it past the first round.

I've really been enjoying my classes this semester. I'm still really busy with papers and assignments, but I feel like they're helping get a better grasp of the material. For instance, in Television History and Culture, I had to research a trade journal from 1957. This meant sifting through about 1500 pages worth of material, formulating a narrative based on my research, and then preparing a report on how the research could be helpful to historians. As nerdy as it sounds, I really enjoyed reading about the changes in the television industry during the 1950s, and how it rippled down through the decades to give birth to the cable and satellite broadcasting available today. As far back as the 1950s, people were theorizing about premium movie channels and sports stations that a user could subscribe to. Like I said, it's totally nerdy, but I'm still having a blast with it.

As for more recent stuff, my sister went on a mission to Rancagua Chile, my brother is here in the city visiting for the weekend, and I'm still trying to figure out the dating scene here (I was totally thrown off recently--a girl I had asked out met me at the restaurant, payed for herself, and then just got off the subway when her stop came up...I don't if that's just considered normal for NYC or not, but I feel like I failed with everything I'm used to: picking the girl up, paying for dinner, and then walking her back to her apartment).

On a side note, I finally submitted a story proposal to This American Life. I had made an audio documentary several years ago for a class at BYU (you can listen to it at this link http://www.handsonacamera.org/Uaudio4.html), and I kept meaning to send it in.

And finally, this past week was spring break. I was able to go up to West Point on Thursday with some friends, and we just walked around the campus and enjoyed our time out of the city. My brother came into town yesterday, and we walked around Times Square for several hours and then ended up going to see Wicked (fourth row seats!). Today we walked around the Financial District and took the Staten Island Ferry, and tomorrow we're going to visit the Guggenheim. Here's some pictures from the past week or so--

One of my friends found this nut starting to blossom. It was tricky trying to take this picture because the depth of field was so narrow--

Part of a tree on West Point. We relaxed on the lawn in front of the museum for a little while, and I wanted to play around some more with depth of field.

The Cathedral at West Point

I don't remember what field this was next to, but it was still on West Point

One of the buildings on West Point. It was pretty cool seeing how a lot of the different buildings looked like castles or something--we're going to try and go back during the spring or summer

As we were heading home from West Point, we stopped at this outcropping to take some pictures.

We thought we were getting into a sketchy situation at the outcropping, because it looked like a motorcycle gang was surrounding the place. Of all things, they were trying to throw a paper airplane off the cliff edge and into the river--so yeah, it wasn't a gang at all, just some friends out for a ride. They let me take some pictures--

Just another sunset pic

On the Staten Island Ferry--I tilted the camera on purpose just to play around with perspective a little. This is right as the ferry was getting ready to dock back in Manhattan. Everyone ran to the windows to take pictures of the NYC skyline, so I thought I'd take a picture of them instead

My brother Pere -- Staten Island Ferry

Some random wall in the Financial District -- everything else was sparkling clean, but this one alleyway just didn't match

Anyway, sorry it has been so long since I last updated my blog. I've just been pretty busy with school and everything. Hopefully I can post more pictures soon--