An Afternoon at the Oculus
Even though the weather is still a bit chilly I just couldn't spend one more afternoon just sitting either in the breakroom or (usually) in the hallway on the other side of the building, so I decided to go out for a walk and take some pictures. I always have in my purse the used Canon G7X I recently purchased for an upcoming trip to Abu Dhabi. I walked for a while and found myself by the Oculus. I used to go there a lot with a photographer friend of mine but now our schedules don't always line up, so today I was there by myself.I used to really enjoy street photography but I just haven't felt that way for a while. I love looking at work from other street photographers, but I'm kind of done with people, as harsh as that sounds. I hate leaving my home unless it's for work and even then I usually have a headache by the time I get there. I think I'm at that age where you just want to go live in the mountains where the nearest neighbor is a few miles away. In fairness, I've felt that way since I was little, but at least I could go out and do what I had to do and not feel so stressed out.
I took a few street photography style shots (like the pictures above) but that's mostly because it's NYC and I was at the Oculus during a very popular time in the afternoon. There were people everywhere. It was kind of impossible to not get shots without at least one person in it. I liked this bird's eye view perspective, so I took quite a few shots like this. I'm more into nature/landscape photography these days, but there aren't a lot of those things here in NYC. I do love to go hiking in the warmer months and it's still a bit cool (for me) to go hiking. I want to hike the ice caves trail in Cragsmoor, but I don't think it's open yet. Or maybe it is, but I probably won't go until at least the middle of June.Shots like these are probably the closest I’ll get to street photography these days.
I really like the reflections on the buildings around here. I've found that since I no longer focus on trying to get a really good street shot, I can focus more on details since I'm not so rushed to try to find something interesting before the moment (usually a second or two at the most) passes.
I didn't really have a lot of time to walk around and take pictures before I had to get back to work, but the fresh air definitely did me good. The sky was really dark and it looked like it was going to rain, but I did like the mood it gave to the pictures. I couldn't decide which one I liked best so I decided to post them both. Which one do you like best? The one where part of the Oculus takes up the whole picture or the one where it has a little bit of empty space on the side?
It's funny. I enjoy my job but it can put a strain on your eyes and give you headaches when you're staring at a computer screen all day, and then I come home and either edit photos and/or write a blog post (I'm definitely going to try to start that again because maybe some kind of creative release will snap me out of this funk I've been in a for a while now.