Across The River: Republishing 9/11 Photos For The 10th Anniversary

View from train approaching Hoboken

I’ve been commuting to NYC on and off for quite a few years now. Which has put me in the position to see a lot of things, the most memorable of those trips was taken on the morning of September 11, 2001. I had been riding the train to Hoboken, NJ where I would normally then transfer to the PATH train and travel to the 9th street station, near my office. Instead, that morning as we approached Hoboken Terminal, we saw the plume of smoke already haunting the skyline. By the time we were stopped and off the train all public transportation had been shut down and I was left stranded with a ring side seat for what was to unfold that day.

Across The River

Across The River is my attempt to give a proper, modern, facelift to the gallery of photographs that I took that day which I first published a few days after the attacks, 10 years ago. I’ve not altered the photographs, but have reprocessed them at a more larger resolution, and with the addition of photographs of the NYC skyline before the attacks as well as images of memorials in the days and years since I hope to have been able to add just a little context to the collection.

Visit Across The River

The previous 9/11 Gallery, as published in September 2001

FDNY 2001-2011: Published with a President

With many groups and individuals using this 10th anniversary of the attacks to pay special tribute it isn’t a surprise that there are others putting together similar collections of images that tell the story of the World Trade Center. I’m honored to have been asked to contribute a photograph to the newly published “FDNY 2001-2011: A Decade of Remembrance and Resilience”. The book is an amazing collection of images of the events and heros of the days following the attacks, put together by the FDNY Foundation, and has a forward written by President George W. Bush. You can purchase the book here.

FDNY: 2001-2011: A Decade of Remembrance and Resilience

3 Photos Added To The Store

Prints of the following photographs of spring cherry blossoms, the NYC skyline, and some tree tops in Hoboken can now be ordered from shop.placenamehere.com for your offline enjoyment:

Pink Cherry Blossoms - Taylor Park

Tree Tops - Hoboken

Lower Manhattan Sunset

These photographs, and many others at New Jersey Landscape Photography by Chris Casciano, are offered for sale in sizes up to 24” x 36” on a selection of appropriate papers and start at the low price of just $6.00 for standard 4“x6” prints. Frames and mats are available and can be customized after the photograph has been selected and added to your shopping cart.

Wrap Up: Chase Jarvis In NYC

Even if your weekend is booked with other events, when you see a tweet like this you jump at the chance and figure it out later.

Chase Jarvis Meetup

Chase Jarvis

The Best Camera

I was quite happy to find out that I had made the cut and got and invite to meet, learn and hang with photographer Chase Jarvis and his crew last weekend. Chase is a commercial photographer, who has been making sure he spends time giving back to the community of photographers out there via blogging, videos, iphone apps and workshops. If you didn’t already know that you should run now and check out Chase’s blog and check out his book of iPhone photographs The Best Camera Is The One That’s With You.

The Message

8:00AM Maplewood to New York City from Chris Casciano on Vimeo.

Through a few demos his main message was to shooting a lot and to play a lot. Doing so forces you to keep looking at and working with your subject to get more out of them then what you can see in 2, 20 or 200 frames where many amateur and pro photogs may stop.

Then, after you have all those hundreds or thousands of frames filling your cards and hard drives, he went on to talk a bit about how he goes through picking selects for a commercial shoot but also some fun things like compositing them or converting them to a wild video sequence.

Between sessions we were all given memory cards care of sponsor Sandisk [crazy thanks!] and told out to go and fill them up as you went about NYC, thinking about the techniques described, and present your work back at a slideshow at the end of the weekend. Not having the time to really dig into the shooting and post processing due to other commitments I did pull together a time lapse style sequence of my commute from NJ to NYC via train and subway and the streets of Manhattan. 2400+ frames taken in about an hour and a half compiled into the video sequence above.

Keep it going

You can look back on the discussion, links to photos, and see what the attendees are doing by following this twitter list of attendees @placenamehere/cjnyc-photogs. If you attended and I didn’t get your name in there just let me know! And thanks again to Chase, his crew, and Sandisk for pulling off a great event and giving your time while in town.

PhotoPlus Expo 2009 Recap

This week saw the annual PDN PhotoPlus Expo come to the Jacob Javits Center. I stopped in a couple days of the Expo to meet up with friends and walk around drooling at the gear, but wasn’t shopping for anything in particular this time around.

What I liked

Perch in a book

There are always lots of things to look at — great photos, great papers and output samples, books and promo materials for working photographers [above: moo.com’s business card and postcard service featuring a case study they did for the Perch CMS in a book made by Blurb], and lots and lots of gear from some of the biggest lenses you’ll ever see to some of the smallest. What caught my attention this year?

  • Nikon’s revamped 70-200mm f2.8 VRII lens due in stores in a few weeks is nice and smooth and responsive in the trade show floor lighting conditions. Might not make those that have the current model run out and upgrade, but the staple lens just got better
  • Sony had, among lots of nifty toys on both the still and video side, a nice lineup of speakers including Cristina Mittermeier, founder of the International League of Conservation Photographers
  • Walked in just as Joe McNalley was giving a talk at the Bogen booth. Having caught his Nikon speedlight demo in past years I was happy to hear him talk more generally about his career. Oh, and I won a copy of his book!
  • Manhandled the Olympus EP-1 again. Its a format I really want to like, and the kit with the 17mm f2.8 pancake lens is nice and compact. Focus seemed really hunty with continus focusing and face recognition on, but aside from some momentary settings issues it was solid. I just haven’t had the need to pull the trigger on one of these things yet.
  • Helicopter! Sky Shutter AeriCam was getting lots of strange looks and many, many questions about their Radio Controlled Helicopter capable of carrying a DSLR sized camera with a 360º rotating controlled mount for aerial photography.
  • Lensbaby had a booth again this year and had their new 12mm 160º fisheye at the show. Optics looked alright and a nice cheap way to get a fisheye lens if you’ve already got there system.
  • Don’t have studio space? StudioShare.org is a brand new venture that looks to take a little from the coworking movement and a little from model mayhem to marry people with available and unused studio space with professional who could use it. Definitely something to watch closely.

D90 & new 70-200mm 2.8 VRII

Above: Nikon’s new 70-200mm 2.8 on my D90 shooting one of the large prints in the Nikon booth.

Who I missed

Though the show floor was packed with people and the booths that were set up were constantly busy, the show did seem a little smaller then previous years. There were a few less gadgety vendors [GPS units, photo frames] and a few notable names missing as well. I was bummed the following weren’t there:

  • Panasonic: I would have liked to check out their micro 4/3s entry the Lumix GF-1 and compared it to the Olympus EP-1 which I did handle.
  • Adobe: MIA the week they released LR3 Beta. Apple having stopped attending and demoing Aperture a a year or two early it wasn’t a crazy idea not to show, but would have liked to see some live demos.
  • Crumpler: I hear they have some new bags soon. mmm bags.
  • [Micro] Stock Companies: Unless my subconscious blocked them from my mind they all seemed absent this year.

Now that I’m all amped on photo stuff its time to get out on a beautiful Sunday and make some photographs.