Category Archives: Photography

Walkabout NYC – May 2011

Inspired by Danny Choo‘s long running A Week in Tokyo series (possible NSFW link), I want to post an odd assortment of photos taken around NYC in the month of May. Instead of one off twitpics, a series of unrelated NYC photos makes for good juxtaposition.

NYC Subway Ad

Dorky yet amusing.

Kalbi from Shilla Ktown

You can never have too much Kalbi.

Vintage Bowling Set

I don’t remember what UWS furniture store this came from.

Red Mango Fulton St Grand Opening

More pay by the ounce yogurt shops is a good thing. The white peach yogurt I got was a bit too runny

Soul Daddy sauces

South St Seaport area – Soul Daddy of American’s Next Great Restaurant fame

Xiao Long Bao sauce stacks

So great, so far away. Nan Xiang Dumpling House in Flushing

Shaved Ice topped with Condensed Milk

As you can tell, I’m never one to shy away from blanket generalizations! Condensed milk goes great with everything! So does tapioca pearls, aloe vera, and bacon (though not necessarily all in the same dish)

Also in Flushing, at Ice Fire Land

Uniqlo Captain Jack Sparrow Shirt

The Disney hype machine is building up for the latest Pirate’s movie. This shirt was spotted at Uniqlo

Goomba hats

From the Nintendo World store, goomba merch

Bowser backpack

You guessed it, from the Nintendo World store. I’d buy this, but $50 is too much for a novelty backpack

TSL3 Afterparty

From the TSL3 afterparty, you can see Thorzain in the background with the adidas three stripes garb

Brown Butter with Candied Bacon on Brioche Cookie

Coolhaus in NYC. That is one seriously heavy dessert

Monopoly Graffiti

Representing the streets of NYC

Chelsea Market exit

The Chelsea Market is a great example of repurposing old buildings (but this isn’t new news)

Whole Foods - Columbus Circle

Looking down at the Whole Foods in the Time Warner Center

AHA Wall Street Run 3M 2011

Ran the 2011 Wall St 3M today.

This is my first NYRR event and it was well organized.

Issued T-Shirts & D-Tag

D-Tags are a nice way to track your time.

Starting Area - Greenwich Street

The wait for the race to start took longer than the actual race. Everyone assumed the worst – that it would rain at the 6:45p race start.

Post Finish Line - Apple Giveaway

If there’s one thing I learned, it’s that eating cold apples after running rocks.

Post Finish Line - Water Cups

After the finish line, there was water, pretzels, and apples. Also booths with free branded merch.

Post Finish Line - World Financial Center Plaza

Obligatory American Heart Association fundraising link. Not sure when the cutoff is, but someone said it goes through June.

Camera Design

This is what constitutes popular (good?) camera design today:

Olympus E-P1 digital pen

An obvious design throwback to the days of film cameras, but not very imaginative.

I’m of the firm belief that camera design as we know it today has tremendous room for change. Take the micro 4/3 standard that is mirrorless.  It’s what enables the E-P1 above to be significantly slimmer than a traditional DSLR and retain interchangeable lenses. Going slimmer is just one possible direction.

Below are some camera concepts that break away from “the standard camera” look (think Leica).

D5R Concept by Ned Mulka

This is a neat concept, but not super practical. Why go through all that body change without a number of obvious benefits? Still, +1 for daring to make a camera body that doesn’t conform to legacy design.

WVIL Concept by Artefact

The WVIL concept excites me a lot more. I think the future of professional cameras may involve wireless lenses syncing to a generic touchscreen (think Android phone, iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad). The WVIL concept is great, but why reinvent the wheel with a proprietary touchscreen when an off-the-shelf generic touchscreen suffices?

I can easily envision a world where a professional photographer has many wireless lenses (perhaps with a gorilla pod each) that are all controlled by a single iPad remotely. All a person would have to do is set up multiple wireless lenses before a sporting event starts. During the event, the lenses would (since this is the future we’re talking about) take continuous ultra high-definition video. The touchscreen controller would be used to monitor focus and other settings.

iPhone 4

Another trend in camera hardware is the disappearance of noticeable hardware. With smartphones packing incredibly better cameras (as in “decent enough”), it’s possible to get high quality photos without carrying around a point and shoot. The trend of nearly invisible camera hardware will only get better as phone cameras improve.

Dylan’s Candy Bar

With Dylan’s Candy Bar, the daughter of Ralph Lauren, Dylan, has her own candy shop in Midtown East. This shows doing one thing well is a good idea. I mean, candy is available at any convenience store, but nobody writes home about those.

5 lb Gummy Bears (top), Gummy Letters

Those 5 lb gummy bears are $40 each. Yes, that’s $40 each.

Chocolate Covered Gummy Bear

Chocolate covered… sure, why not?

Rainbow Peeps

Easter just passed, the Peeps are still on display.

Gummy Bacon

Strawberry flavored? Um, OK. Even though it’s gummy candy, it must feel fat to eat giant swabs of gummy bacon.

ICEE Candy

Nice! Who knew they made ICEE in chewy candy form?

Gumball Bath Tub

You probably don’t want to swim in that.

Jelly Belly soda

I’ll be honest, I was tempted to try some of the flavors. Green Apple is particularly tempting.

Birthday Cake Cupcake Cookies

These are so meta. It’s a cookie that tastes like birthday cakes. It’s a cupcake-cookie thing that tastes like cakes?

Gummy Chicken Feet

For those who can’t get enough during dim sum, you can have some for dessert.

Foodspotting 1Q11

Some food photos, mostly downtown Manhattan.

Pho & Taro PMT @ Vicky's Vietnamese

Go Go Curry

Taiwanese Pork Chops @ Bian Dian (Food Court 32)

Blueberry Pancakes with Maple Butter @ Clinton St Baking Co

Grilled Corn Mexican Style @ Café Habana

Roast Pork with Noodles @ Big Wing Wong

Burger with Onion Rings @ Wall Street Burger Shoppe

Chihuahua & Tater Tots @ Crif Dogs

Shack Stack @ Shake Shack UWS

Pre-Set Menu @ Ayurveda Cafe

Cheeseburger & Cheese Fries @ Steak 'n Shake

Team EF Lens Mount

via flickr @kevinv033

Bloomberg:

In the market for cameras with interchangeable lens, or single lens reflex cameras, Canon controlled 44.5 percent of the market, followed by Nikon with 29.8 percent and Sony with 11.9 percent, according to the data.

The good news is that Canon is #winning, even if Apple is really winning?

The bad news is that prices are going up:

There’s lots of reports of price increases across the globe. This was bound to happen as retailers were and are still unsure what stock levels are going to be like.

Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade 2010

I’m amazed how it’s already December. Better post the recent Thanksgiving Parade photos before they get dated.

Snoopy is in the house

Kermit the Frog is in the house

Diary of a Wimpy Kid is in the house

The street crowd at 70th St and CPW

some Ronald McDonald on Ice Skates

Uncle Sam with the thumbs up

The Statue of Liberty on a cold November morning

Miranda Cosgrove with Despicable Me minions

Who lives in a pineapple under the sea? SpongeBob SquarePants!

Arrtie the Pirate - a recreated 1947 balloon

The Wiggleworm caught on camera

"Supercute Hello Kitty" with her fans

Shrek in the ogre swamp that is New York City

Takashi Murakami's (of LV fame) Kaikai

Takashi Murakami's (of LV fame) Kiki

Harold the Fireman - a recreated 1948 balloon

Kung Fu Panda joins the fray

Pikachu is peeking out

Spiderman turns out the park

Mr. West is in the building / Swagger on a hundred thousand, trillion

Horton the elephant

*Insert your own Kool-Aid (R) Man joke here*

Buzz Lightyear to infinity and beyond!

The Energizer Bunny??? It's not a Thanksgiving parade without someone trying to sell you batteries?

The Pillsbury Doughboy floating by

It's Smurf time

Santa Claus is in the house

Questionable street vendor merchandise is in the house

(Hat tip to Gothamist for the list of balloon names)

Canstructed at the WFC Winter Garden

CANgsta's Paradise

I made the trek over to Battery Park to check out Canstruction in the WFC Winter Garden. Throughout the shopping mall, there are can sculptures of different themes. The sculptures are on display for two weeks and then donated to charity for use.

Can Mario 1-UP Hunger?

A giant Mario, presumably about to eat the mushroom.

Mario face close-up

A close-up of his face, full of beans.

Paper Mario

Paper Mario. Get it? Aww, nevermind…

Paint the Town "Fed"

On the other side, “Give” was written in blue.

Don't Let Hunger Spill

This was hard to guess without reading the description. It’s the southern portion of the US affected by the BP oil spill.

I think I 'Can'

MTA fielding an entry? This is a good cause, so the more cans donated to City Harvest, the better.

The Candard Hotel, New York

Like! The High Line Park as depicted in can form. Not entirely visible is The Standard Hotel.

FEASTer Island

This Moai was very photogenic.

Cups Can Only Spill

Nice, simple sculpture.

Tomato Tornado

This tornado was by SOM. Sorry about the yellow cones in all the photos :(

It's a Hit (to Hunger)!

Cue all the children yelling, “You sunk my battleship!”

Battleships close-up

A close up of the nitty gritty: Modern Naval Can Warfare.

Mr. Potato Head

The aptly named, Mr. Potato Head. Maybe next year, someone will attempt a Mr. Pita Bread Head.

Building Blocks Against Hunger

Building Blocks? AKA Legos

A-Salt on Hunger

It’s not immediately obvious what this one represents. If I understand correctly, it’s two individuals hugging each other – representing opposites (black and white). This was made with Evaporated milk cans and Hershey’s syrup.

Food around town: 5th Ave, Serendipity, and San Gennaro

Here’s a catch up post for some food in the city.

Free drinks at Façonnable

There’s the usual overpriced bar drink in NY. Then there’s the free, all you can drink cheap stuff at luxury retailers on 5th Ave.

Fashion’s Night Out 2010 was the latter. Getting free drinks in Zegna, Versace, etc. while in said stores is simply amazing.

Nine West appetizers

I’m pretty sure this was Nine West. They had drinks and snacks such as the ones pictured above. What a great concept – these were bland tasting toaster pastries, but the presentation was excellent.

Carrot cake at Serendipity 3

Now, we hop over to a long running restaurant called Serendipity 3. They have a little bit of everything on the menu, and they can serve as a dessert place after your dinner if you so choose. The carrot cake above really hit the spot (as well as my wallet).

Serendipity 3 Menu

This $1,000 sundae is a bargain compared to their $25,000 haute chocolate.

Strawberry Sundae

This sundae was as delicious as you would imagine, but this thing is enough dessert for 2 or 3 people by itself.

Pecan Pie Sundae

While the strawberry would be enough for all of us at the table, we had to go ahead and get this pecan pie sundae as well.

Torrisi Italian Specialties booth

OK, the last part of this post. This is Torrisi’s booth at San Gennaro. San Gennaro is a *meh* festival that has been going on forever, but I had to check out Torrisi’s booth since this is their first showing at the festival.

For more background, check out the Times article. I like that they went for an Asian theme at the Italian festival, just as a tongue in cheek way to poke fun at how Chinatown is taking over Little Italy and everything else in the vicinity.

wok-fried mozzarella sticks

These were hearty and had great texture. I felt they were over salted, but hand made mozz is delicious.

roast pork sandwich

The roast pork sandwich. The one I received was cold, bitter, and mildly spicy. I wouldn’t fault it for being cold, but there was no delicious flavor profile for me. It was simply cold and bitter, which was a disappointment since I’m a huge fan of their lunch sandwiches (specifically the Turkey Panama).

cream puff

While oddly shaped, I actually tried their cream puff on two different occasions. This was the star of the booth for me as the cream puff managed to be light, smooth, and not too sweet in a package that really came together.