Manhattan

The New York City 5th Avenue Easter Day Parade is always a highlight for most photographers. It sometimes feels like there are more photographers than participants! This past year offered up some truly amazing opportunities for great images. One particular lady caught my eye as she was completely monochromatic, providing a stunning, focused subject amidst the vibrant chaos.

 

A Photographer's Dream

 

I strongly encourage you to attend next year. It’s a fantastic venue to learn and practice people's portraits and to quickly gain confidence in engaging with strangers. The atmosphere is unique: almost everyone there is dressed up, in a festive mood, and actively wants their picture taken. They are more than happy to pose, making it an ideal, low-pressure environment for refining your approach, composition, and interpersonal skills.

If you are looking to build your portfolio with unique, character-driven images, or just want to overcome the fear of asking people for a portrait, this parade is an unmissable annual event.

See you there next year!

Every year, typically for a precious week in mid-October , a magnificent event occurs: the setting sun aligns perfectly with the eastern-facing windows of Grand Central Terminal's main concourse. This phenomenon, which I eagerly anticipate, bathes the entire hall in a dramatic, incandescent glow, transforming the vast space into a temporary, golden cathedral.

 

It offers an unparalleled opportunity for photographers to capture a truly iconic image of this architectural masterpiece. 

 

The window of opportunity is incredibly brief, often lasting only 30 minutes or less, making the event a thrilling, high-stakes challenge. The critical factor, of course, is the weather; a single overcast day means months of waiting for the sun's position to realign.

 

I was determined to make the most of this year's alignment. Here is one of my latest efforts, where I experimented with slower shutter speed techniques. The goal was to contrast the timeless, monumental granite architecture with the hurried blur of commuters, allowing the flow of human movement to become a ghost-like abstraction within the enduring golden light. I hope the results capture the ephemeral magic of that moment.

Now would you buy a hot dog from this stand even on a snowy night ?

I woke up to photograph the early morning party-goers as they made their way home from a night of drinking on Halloween. Watching a man dressed in stockings as he lay strung out on the uncomfortable benches of the Staten Island Ferry.

 

I thought this would be enough, but then I saw Our Lady peering up through the early morning fog.

It pays to be out at 3 a.m.

When you’re out there, you're looking for the raw essence. Most people are trying to blend in, to get past the next corner. But then you find the others. The ones who stand out. You see them, and you know immediately: they are the picture.

 

The gentleman with the extraordinary fashion—that’s the whole point. He’s the one who decided the rules don't apply, who is visually screaming his own story without saying a word. That’s the 'Think Different' you’re talking about, right there on the pavement. That quote from Jobs wasn't about a computer; it was a hymn to the rebels and the misfits.

 

I shoot people like that because they have heart. They have courage. They make the work worth doing. You walk up, you pay them respect with the lens, and you get a glimpse behind the curtain. That moment, when they allow you into their space—that is the whole reason we leave the house.

 

It’s less about the photography, , and more about who you will meet and what you will see. The camera just makes it possible. It gives you the shot, but the street gives you the story.

 

I took one of my favorite recent street shots at a street parade in Queens, New York. The lady looked like she had stepped straight out of a time machine into another dimension—a parallel universe to everything else going on around me at the parade.

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York is a place I regularly visit for inspiration. I find great value in studying artists I admire, such as Piet Mondrian, Jackson Pollock, and old masters like J.M.W. Turner. Their work has consistently influenced my photography, and the museum itself is an incredible subject to capture.

 

Many of the great photographers I admire, including Elliot Erwitt, have expertly photographed museum-goers interacting with famous works of art. On this particular visit, however, the museum's architecture became my primary focus. The building's design, with its incredible shafts of light landing on the walls, created its own unique work of art.

Recently had the pleasure of seeing the exhibition "Constellation" by Diane Arbus. The image is a friend, Andreas from Leica Zurich, walking past one of Arbus's prints.

 

The show was so refreshing to see. Images that on today's social media would be completely destroyed and Diane Arbus cancelled were being enjoyed by so many people. It gave me faith and reinforced the fact that most of the images we are taking are not for today, but for 20 years from now.

 

The amazing portraits of the people she met deserve to be in our history books too.

For a brief second, you sometimes get stopped in your tracks. This is exactly what happened while out teaching a workshop one night. I turned around and saw a dog literally staring in a window at a toy dog. The classic phrase, 'How much is that doggie in the window?' instantly came to mind.

 

I quickly grabbed my camera and took this shot, knowing very well it would be gone in a second.

2018 was probably one of my favorite snowstorms in recent memory in New York City which led to this image. A store clerk from the fashion brand Thom Browne came outside for a quick selfie, and I was able to take this image with my Leica SL2 with a 28-90 Elmarit lens.

Image taken during a heavy snowstorm on 5th Avenue, New York City. This is a favorite of mine for its timeless feel. It was taken on the Leica SL with a 28-90mm Elmarit F2.8-4. I used to use this setup for snowstorms with a rain cover, but now I've opted for the S lenses.

Early morning on 9th Avenue during a snowstorm in New York City. It's that one time that I find the city is in a tranquil state, and I can tune everything out and focus purely on capturing the city that I love. I find you can capture images that have a timeless quality, and the elements often make the advertising boards and distractions in the background fall away into the distance.

This particular image was taken on probably the best weather day I have ever seen in New York. I was teaching a class for Leica Akademie USA that day, and we all lucked out. That morning alone we had multiple competition winners. The image was taken under the FDR Drive on the lower east side of Manhattan, New York.