So it’s after 3 AM in the apartment here in NYC. My whole body is sore. I think carrying lighting and camera equipment across lower Manhattan wore my body down a little bit. That, and then realizing I forgot my transmitter so having to run back across a few blocks to get it out of my car. Luckily I had help.
Lee came down from Philadelphia to be in the shot. Cody, a current Louisiana Tech student here on an internship with Dan Saelinger, came over to assist on the shoot. Both helped haul equipment around to a street corner a few blocks off Wall Street, and Cody was instrumental in helping run the camera during the actual shooting.
Let me tell you a bit about the scene. When I originally was casting for images on this trip, Lee responded to a call and said she was closer to New York, so she’d come down there. She also picked an image that I felt would probably be one of the trickier ones to do. So it would happen right in the biggest city in America. Fun times.
The shot was unofficially called “Pepto Bombs.” In brief, it calls for lots of pepto bismol coating the people in the shot as they respond to an emergency. So after setting up, she and I covered each other in this pink liquid and got down to work in the scene. Definitely the messiest photo I’ve ever done. During the actual shooting, had a few people stopping to watch the process. Worked the image pretty run-and-go style, didn’t want to prolong the stay on this street corner that I was painting pink, but in the end the various takes came out pretty well! Excited to get to really dive into the scene.
With “work” done in the city, it was time to go out and explore the nightlife that it offers. Well, almost time. Sandra, a friend from undergraduate days who now works in New York as a lawyer, came by the shoot and then over to Stephanie’s with us. I set up a portrait station and photographed Stephanie, Sandra, Lee, and Cody.
Here is Stephanie. You might recognize her from the dinosaur portrait years ago.
Sandra, who was rocking a cast on her broken foot!
Lee, whose first take was the best!
And Cody, wonder-assistant!
Afterwards, we went to Time Square, saw the ad-overload, checked out the glass Apple store, saw the NBC studios and Radio City, headed over to Washington Plaza, walked around the NYU campus, had my first falafel in a restaurant near there, and in general, lots of walking and taking things in. Looking forward to coming back here more frequently, since I’ll be just a couple hours away starting in August.
Tomorrow is Boston! The goal is to wake up and be on the road by 11 AM. We’ll see how well my body allows that plan to proceed.
I leave you with production photos, courtesy of Cody Bryant. And, like an idiot, despite all of the images shot today, I forgot to take a cast photo from the scene. I’m kicking myself, too, because adorned in pepto bismol would have been amazingly fantastic. Well… what can you do, I guess. I suppose this is where the imagination will have to come into play. Oh well… photos!
And, here are a few more sights from walking about, exploring NYC. Images of me were taken by Cody.
Some shots from the iPhone…
One final image to leave you with, is a panoramic I made of the WTC construction site. Click the image below to see a much larger version…
