Sunrise, New York, NY, August 17, 2010

An outtake from the assignment mentioned in the previous post.  The buildings I was photographing were behind me but this was too good to pass up.

Yonkers, I’m sure, gets a bad rap. It’s just north of New York City and in Westchester County but it isn’t the Westchester most think of. I don’t know the city other than having done one shoot there a few years ago. The kids I worked with then were great.

Beyond that Yonkers is the right angle you make going from the Sawmill River Parkway to the Cross County or vice versa. You are not really seeing Yonkers at that point but if you are moving south and driving at night, you come over a large hill and voilà - there is a valley in front of you, the near side of the ridge which overlooks the Hudson, and a multitude of lights spread before you. I don’t know how long we have been doing it but SOP as you come over the hill is to say, “Yonkers, city of lights,” knowing full well it’s no Paris.

Monday night, with a layover between two legs of an architecture assignment and a sunrise call for leg two, it made sense to spend the night. So, Yonkers it was – at a new hotel on top of the ridge, in one of those bizarre office parks which can’t seem to pick an identity.

View from my room. Yonkers, NY, August 16, 2010.

It was impossible to miss this tower at the top of the hill. Seeing it with the gas station at its feet I immediately thought of George Tice’s photo, Petit’s Mobil Station. Not wanting to copy that but drawn to the tower like Richard Dreyfuss in Close Encounters I began to plot my move. A thunderstorm then rolled in, the window in my hotel room would not open more than 4″, so I made the best of it.

I don’t know if that’s a water tower. I don’t know if the cabling is to pull up a modesty cloth so it can be painted in peace. The cabling made it reminiscent of the Parachute Jump in Coney Island. Maybe the tower, like the office park, still needs to pick an identity.

Photographed last spring, the Monticello and Charlottesville, VA images are now in their own gallery on the web site.

Railroad crossing, Charlottesville, VA.

Charlottesville, VA.

Monticello & Charlottesville gallery.

Prior blog post.

Photographed this past fall, NYU Dental School’s new Oral and Urgent Care suite struck me in how much it reminded me of the house in North by Northwest.

Vandamm House, North by Northwest

The house in the movie, inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright, never existed in real life. The exteriors were painted mattes composited with live action foreground images.

NYU Dental School’s new suites:

Larger versions of the last two images are on my web site in the Architecture>Commercial gallery, here and here.

I have posted reports on both of Canon’s new TS-E lenses (aka tilt/shift), the 17mm f/4L and the 24mm f/3.5L II, and I have been using them full on since receiving them earlier this year. They’re great optics. It’s clear how much of an improvement they are and how much they stand out the first time you use them.

Now, architectural photographer Rainer Viertlböck has posted two tests comparing them with his medium-format digital back, a 33mp Sinar e75, coupled with Rodenstock’s high-end view camera lenses; the 23HR, 28HR, and 35HR. Rainer used the Canon lenses on a Canon 5D Mark II.

Canon 17mm TS-E F/4L compared to Rodenstock 23HR + Sinar e75

Canon 24mm TS-E f/3.5L II compared to Rodenstock 28HR & 35HR + Sinar e75

Many are in agreement about how great these new Canon lenses are but I don’t know that anyone, myself included, expected them to compare so favorably against a medium-format digital back when used with view camera lenses. In the 17mm TS-E test, the Canon doesn’t have quite the detail or resolution of the medium-format kit but it comes awful close. This holds true even when the Canon files are res’d. up to match the Sinar e75 resolution.

In the 24mm TS-E II test, the Canon does a much better job than the Sinar/Rodenstock combo in controlling flare from tungsten light sources.

Every digital kit is a compromise of sorts. With a DSLR you have flexibility but loose in sharpness; with a medium-format digital back you gain in sharpness and resolution, but are more limited in workflow, operability, and the cost of entry is orders of magnitude higher.

It used to be that one of the main factors in digital architectural photography tipping the scales toward medium-format digital backs was the ability to use view camera lenses. This combo offered a photographer image quality which a DSLR with SLR style lenses could never attain. Well, never is broken and that compromise is looking less like a compromise and more like a choice based on style and needs.

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My Canon 17mm TS-E and 24mm TS-E II posts:

• Quick Look – Canon 17mm f/4L TS-E Lens
• Longer Look – Canon 17mm f/4L TS-E Lens
• Live View is My Friend (features the Canon 17mm TS-E lens)
• Canon’s TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II Lens
• What’s It Take to Fill a Space and Make It Your Own? (features the Canon 17mm TS-E lens)

Ace assistant, Dan Mezick, gets a Macbeth card into the frame.

On location on Tuesday. I’ve used this method a few times when a subject is high up but still within reach of a light stand. Time to hoist the Macbeth card. The camera is in the foreground, on its back, and pointed straight up to photograph the ceiling details.

More info. and final photos once the images are published.

Butler College, Princeton University, God courtesy of Michelangelo

The clouds above were present when the image was shot so it’s hard not to make the leap above. This is a new project added with the new web site, Butler College at Princeton University, designed by Henry Cobb of Pei Cobb Freed & Partners.

Shot in August, Butler College incorporates many sustainability features including green roofs on more than half of the buildings. These will serve as a living experiment for professors and students as they assess its impact when compared with traditional roofing materials.

Here are more images from the project. Larger versions can be found at the new web site in the Butler College Gallery (minus Michelangelo’s input.)

Back in New York City a week ago, Friday, to fill out some work from earlier this summer. This time it’s a chance to see before and after in NYU’s Founders Hall.

Empty dorm room, August 14, 2009

November 6, 2009, View 1

November 6, 2009, View 2