Miami Day 2

Good Morning Miami! @ 540AM

   After a rough introduction Sunday, Miami provided a lot of fun today.  The town is an engineering marvel.  Everywhere I turn in downtown there is something fantastic to capture.  The people also have a rather nice temperment here to us tourists...especially those that don't speak the prefered language downtown, Spanish.  The town does shine with a Central and Southern America twist.  You can see it in the business links, food, culture, and vibrancy of the town.  Despite all that it does really have an American flavor to it all.  In the business district there is the normal go get 'em attitude I found in New York earlier this year.  So all in all I am finding exploration here rather fun.

The old Miami Freedom Tower..once a newspaper's home and now a museum to Cuban Culture

I am enjoying the juxiposition of the classic 1920's Miami and modern day construction.  The bridges between islands are facinating...and the huge skyscapers extending all the way to the water's edge.  Wow!

   Even inside our hotel there are so many fun things to photograph...outside my room by the elevator these lights just screamed to be photographed. 

Oh I hope tomorrow to get even better light to photograph this remarkable town.

-ehw

P.S.  All photos shot with the Fujifilm X-E1 and the XF23mm lens.  I took the day to practice with one lens and one focal length.  I did this to make my mind conceive and execute the photo in a 35mm equivalent on a 35mm film camera.  The lens  is fantastic.  I just need to get better at using it.  

One other interesting test I made was to work harder at using the internal controls of the camera to create the tonal curves.  One, Three and Four are examples of this with minimal cropping or alignment corrections in Snapseed.  The camera is much better than I am still. 

Cheers!

Some fresh hot nuts!

New York has thousands of these street vendors across the city. One of my buddies really enjoys his fresh hot nuts...he likes cashews..but you could get peanuts and almonds too....

This night was very cold...and so when I saw the red in the photograph I thought I was seeing things. I was cold, but the photo seemed hot. Why?

Well the answer was one of those huge neon signs was active on the far side of the street. For just a brief moment it was on full red and helped make the hot nuts look red hot!

-ehw

Grand Central Station

Grand Central Station is an amazing sight to behold. Hustle, bustle, and still some elegance while it is at work. I think that is what I still like about it 20 years after my last visit to this landmark.

Wherever I go, whatever I do I think I find the best actions and places are the ones with elegance ingrained in their pursuit of a noble purpose. In this case, Grand Central is a vital transportation center. It gets people to and from this city on hundreds of train trips every day. Yet while doing this the building stands tall with beauty and grace. Its caretakers keep it gleaming and functional. I find deep enjoyment in both of those observations when I stand amidst all of it. I also sadly find that not enough of those ethics remain in many new stations, stadiums and transit stations who have planned obsolesce built into their core DNA...and their caretakers just seem to accelerate the process.

I hope my photo does justice to the grand station...and the people who keep her gleaming.

-ehw PS Fujifilm X-E1 with the 35mm At F1.4 to catch the light.