In NYC there’s always something going on no matter what time of day and there are always interesting subjects to photograph no matter where you are in town.  The hectic and eclectic nature e of the city is great for photographers but I’m not sure that I would want to live there on a long term basis.

In 2011 I made my 4th or 5th visit to NYC in as many years. Here are some of the best photos from my trip:

The Brooklyn Bridge seen from Lower Manhattan – we walked over to Brooklyn to get away from the busy city streets for a while.

The Peking, a 4 mast ship on Pier 17 in NYc

View of Lower Manhattan from the Brooklyn Bridge

A street scene from Historic Little Italy in New York City

Echo, a sculpture by Jaume Plensa in New York’s Madison Square Park

The Empire State Building viewed from Street level with American Flags waving in the foreground

Cables from The Brooklyn Bridge form a web of steel

Locks of Love on the Brooklyn Bridge

9/11 Memorial tiles in New York City – Tiles for America

The historic Flatiron building in NYC

A Pink Elephant in a truck full of Antiques in New York City

The Most Interesting Objects – items from Olde Good Things in NYC

Yarn Bombing or Knita – a form of Street Art perhaps best suited for your grandmother

Pork ribs from Eataly at the Mad St Eats street food Festival near Madison Square Park in 2011

An imposing Gargoyle in Brooklyn sits in front of a Brownstone just across the bridge

Where 5th Avenue meets 18th Street on the Ladies Mile Historic District (NYC)

The interior of Toys R’ Us in Times Square

Smartphones like the iPhone and the Android devices are thin, light, connected to the Internet, and come equipped with pretty decent cameras. Smartphones are also becoming indispensable pieces of technology as we are increasingly calling, texting, and updating each other via social media apps such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Our increasing dependency on smartphones means that they are always with us and for a shutterbug like me, my iPhone camera is a great way for me to document what’s going on in my life – a sort of social photo diary for people with bad memories.

Below are my selected 365 Instagram photos from 2011 – Hover over any of the photos below to see a caption and what day it was taken on. Click on the image to see a full sized picture.

Do any of you keep a 365 photo gallery? Do you find that smartphones make it easier to keep up with taking one photo a day for a whole year?

Related Article:
Photography Everywhere – Quick, Light, and Easy Mexico Travel Photography on Instagram

This spot hasn’t always been so popular – 3 years ago I did a portrait photo shoot here and there were many more weeds and vines on the wall than graffiti pieces. Today the tables have turned – virtually every usable stretch of wall has been used. Why has this place become so popular in the last few years? I have a feeling it has to do with the mass influx of creative people from areas of the country where Street Art is more popular like New York and Los Angeles.

This is a great off the beaten path place for photographer to visit – enter at your own risk though – the grounds are not maintained and no trespassing signs are posted!

Red and Yellow Jester, Dog, and Turtle Graffiti – Artist Unknown

Large Obey Paste Ups by Sheppard Fairey of Obama HOPE and Exit Through the Gift Shop fame

2 Walls at the Foundation – “The Grass is Greener” and a Grasshopper mural – artists unknown

Japanese Anime style graffiti behind advancing weed growth – artist unknown

Flying Man Kite Graffiti – Artist Unknown

Walls are almost completely covered at the Foundation – Black and White Sheppard Fairey Obey paste on the back wall

Brittney Spears Streetart by the local Austin Graffiti Artist Niz

Jodie Foster piece by Austin Graffiti Artist Niz

2 more works Austin Graffiti Artist Niz (images of females in the foreground)

The foundation hosts many different styles of street art – Artists Unknown

Window frame from some long abandoned building

Chupacabra StreetArt ? – artist uknown

Monsters – Artist Unknown

This guy looks like he’s being punched in the face by a Wildstyle piece by various artists including well known local Graffiti Artist Sloke One.

Japanese Mountain Graffiti in Austin, Texas – Artist Unknown

The grass is greener Graffiti staring out at what else? green grass

Poker Graffiti – also Sheppard Fairey paste ups on the back wall

What the Foundation walls looked like in October, 2008 – no graffiti on the walls, just vines and a few small patches that had been painted over.

I already had one hack for this situation that involves hooking up 2 umbrella mounts together, but I’ve found that this setup cannot support heavier loads and if the wind blows hard, the entire setup will twist apart resulting in disaster. Having recently bought a 60″ Softlighter II, there is no way that the old hack would work on that HUGE and HEAVY 60″ Softlighter.

Above: My original dual umbrella adapter hack

Later, I came across a post by Flickr user Luzer about the hack he came up with to get around the problem. His solution was to purchase a Smith Victor Stand Flash Stand Shoe from B&H photo and it looks like he had to hack that up a little as well.

Above: Luzer’s umbrella softbox hack – See his entire post here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bigluzer/500249073/

I went to Home depot to try to duplicate Luzer’s hack because I didn’t feel like ordering the part from B&H, paying shipping, and waiting for 2 weeks. Also, I have 3 light stands and I didn’t want to pay ~$25 + shipping for all 3 stands.

Today I was able to come out of Home Depot with an elegant solution that cost my less than $8.50 including tax (and no shipping) for total for 3 sets of 90 degree adapters.

Above: the finished product – a “supertsai” 90 degree adapter for an Umbrella Bracket

Above: the finished product in use with a Softlighter II

Finished product once again and the materials needed to construct it.

Equipment needed for 1 adapter hack:

1-1/2″ Corner Brace
1/4″ – 20 Wingnut
1/4″ – 20 x 1/2″ Machine screw(I think a 1/4″ long one would have been ideal but I couldn’t find any)
1/4″ Cut Washers (I used 3 because my screws were a bit too long)

I found all of these items in the same aisle at Home Depot. The wingnut, screw, and washers were right next to each other in the screw aisle. The corner brace was almost directly behind the other items next to the door hinges and door bolts.

Everything pretty much screws together pretty easily. You will need either a screwdriver or a penny to use as a tool.

Instructions:

Tools you need:
Phillips and Flat head screwdrivers
A Socket wrench with a 1/4 bit
pliers

The holes are a tight fit so you might want to use some gloves too b/c brute strength might be necessary

1. Remove the hotshoe mount from your umbrella bracket first (it’s the silver thing that attaches to the strobe.
2. Use the machine screw to attach the hotshoe mount to one of the lower holes of the 90 degree corner bracket using your screwdriver or penny (use washers as spacers if the screw is too long). If the fit is too tight, get some pliers and an old sock to hole the hotshoe mount in place while you turn the machine screw.
3. Finally, attach the 90 degree corner brace to the thread coming out of the umbrella bracket where the hotshoe mount used to be using the wingnut you bought.

Viola! you are done.

Some things that I noticed you could do to improve the design after I took the first photo are mounting the hotshoe bracket sideways on the corner bracket so that the ridge of the hotshoe bracket supports some weight. Also, you can mount the umbrella bracket on the lower of the 2 holes on the corner brace. You can also use washers on the wingnut\umbrella mount contact point to distribute the weight a little better.

I also have another mod that allows for 2 strobes to share a single umbrella.

Millions of people around the world are obsessed with photography and capturing the special moments around them no matter when or where. They drag around large, heavy cameras and associated accessories on both trips around the corner and half way around the world. I know these crazed individuals well, I’m one of them!

However, many serious photographers are feeling a little less attached to their bulky, expensive DSLRs with recent improvements in the quality of smartphone cameras on the iPhone and the Android family of devices. Because these devices feature a reasonably high quality camera, smartphones are rapidly replacing the point and shoot digital cameras.

Also, because smartphones are computers that feature great software specifically designed for photographers, editing and sharing photos from your vacation while you are still on your vacation has become easier than ever before. I tell people that having my smartphone is like carrying a camera, Photoshop, and Flickr in my pocket all in one device. Also I don’t have to spend hours after the fact processing photos – I do it while I’m watching TV or waiting on food at a restaurant.

While the picture quality of the iPhone camera isn’t anywhere close to my 21 megapixel Canon 5D mkII, often I can get shots that I would never have gotten before. I can take my smartphone anywhere I go without feeling burdened by 15 pounds of metal strapped to my back and people aren’t as intimidated by a cellphone camera, allowing for more candid street imagery. As a result, I find myself leaving the big camera back in the hotel quite often when convenience trumps image quality and when I don’t feel safe with big expensive camera screaming I’M A TOURIST (someone has tried to mug me before, but that’s a different story altogether).

Speaking of apps and photo communities, my favorite iPhone app of all time is Instagram. The Instagram app includes easy Photoshop-like editing and simple Flickr community style sharing. The filters (quick settings that transform your photos with a single click) that Instagram provides are amazing – it can make any shot you take look like a vintage photo in no time at all. There are about 12 different filters and many of them can mask weaknesses in the phone’s camera – making dark photos brighter, pulling back overexposed photos, and adding contrast to washed out pictures.

Enough talking – I’ll now let you be the judge. The following 12 photos were taken on my recent trip to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico and all were edited using only the Instagram application.

Mexican street toy vendor in front of a cathedral in downtown Puerto Vallarta – Nashville Filter

Palm Tree Silhouette on Puerto Vallarta Beach

The Streets of the tourist section of Puerto, Vallarta – Jalisco

Girl in the rain through a car window – Puerto Vallarta, Mexico

Motorcycle in the rain – Puerto Vallarta, Mexico

Street vendor squeezing out dough into a deep fryer to make Churros – Puerto Vallarta, Mexico

An intentionally lo-fi Mexican Tequila Tour photo taken in the pouring rain.

#HereIStand – My feet next to the dog paw prints made in Mexican clay Saltillo tiles

Mexican Jaguar art

Mexican Street Food – Elotes Asado. The corn pictured here is the same corn used to make tortillas. Larger and less sweet than the corn we are used to in America.

Mexican Aztec Art

Half Man – Half Fish sculpture at our hotel

So what do you think?

Instagram might not be for everyone – picture quality after filters have been applied can be a bit lacking if you are obsessed with image quality, but there is no denying the appeal of the platform. For casual users who want highly stylized images with minimal effort, Instagram is a slam dunk.

You can’t discount the social features of Instagram either – I’ve met so many cool people through this simple service, and dare I say I like it the most out of any photo sharing service out there, even Flickr. On Instagram, there is a real sense of community – perhaps because all users are part of the iPhone community currently and therefor similar, and also because Instagram, like Twitter, allows the use of hashtags, which make it easy to find people with similar interests or who are in the same geographical area.

So, How do you like Instagram? On what occasions have you ditched your DSLR for a smartphone camera?

If you are already as crazy about Instagram as I am, my username on the service is supertsai

Have you worked on one really long project and followed it through to completion? Was it an endeavor that consumed much of your life, but you knew it would all be worth it in the end?

Well my friends, that’s how I feel right now, as my biggest photo project to date, an entire 128 page book full of photos, has finally hit bookstore shelves everywhere.

The book is called Austin, Texas: A Photographic Portrait. It has 175 of my photos and covers more than 100 attractions around Austin, Texas.

For more information, including tons of photos and a video describing the book, please jump over to my other blog and read the article, Austin, Texas: A Photographic Portrait – Book Now on Sale!

UPDATE 06/10/2011 – I was recently interviewed by Rebecca Otis of The Rebeccamendations blog. Click here to read my interview on her great Austin entertaining and events blog.

I had the pleasure of listening to the mastermind of the Austin street pianos, Johnny Walker (yes that’s his real name), speak about his art project at Pecha Kucha Austin. He said the goal of the project was to have Austinites appreciate their public spaces more and to facilitate interaction among strangers. Well, sir, mission accomplished and Thank You!

Speaking of Pecha Kucha, I had the pleasure of presenting at the 2nd Austin Pecha Kucha – my 20 slides can be found here.

Before you enjoy the pictures from “Play Me, I’m Yours” – a couple of links. First, for those that didn’t know, I posted an earlier set of Austin Street Art piano photos. Also, I enjoyed this photo set of pretty people and pretty pianos by another Austin photographer, Jeremiah Newton.

Enjoy the photos and I hope you enjoyed the pianos as much as I did.

The Long Center piano at Night (features ship themed artwork)

Long Center piano with the halo arch around the building

A somewhat hidden Pfluger Bridge garden piano

People in Austin still like to give George “W” Bush a hard time in public art form.

This piano received an eyeball makeover since the last set of photos I took of it.

Different groups of people interact with the Lamar Pedestrian Bridge piano throughout the day

Keyboard wisdom – If you didn’t know your age, how old would you be?

Skull art and a broken hammer on the 1st street pedestrian bridge piano

Kiss bench at the W Hotel in Austin, Texas

Bright Pink piano in Woolridge Park in Austin, Texas

Duncan Park BMX Art Piano

I have a feeling these stripped keys has something to do with BMX bikes

Blue Cranes – apparently some band here in Austin

Johnny Walker put this piano by the jail and the foreclosure office to bring a little joy to the people that need it the most.

These pianos invite passers by to take some time out of their day to play some music to hopefully bring a little joy into the lives of others. The street pianos are on a worldwide tour, and their time in Austin won’t be for long. The pianos are being packed up for their next destination on May 1st, 2011. To read more about the Art Pianos, check out a post about them on the Austin Photo Book blog.

Update 5-6-2011 – For Part 2 of the Austin Piano series, check out the post entitled Goodbye Austin Street Pianos.

Pastel Art Piano at the W Hotel in Downtown Austin

Another photo of the W Hotel Art Piano in Austin, Texas

Orange City Hall Street Piano Art at Austin City Hall

Shadow, Light, and an orange art piano under the Austin City Hall canopy

I Love You Piano at Lou Neff Point in Austin, Texas – this reminds me of the I Love You So Much graffiti just a mile away from this spot

Austin StreetArt Piano on top of Doug Sahm Hill. This one has Godzilla art on the bottom near the foot pedals

The same piano on Doug Sahm Hill – Love!

Play Me I’m Yours – Austin Art Piano under the Auditorium Shores Pavilion

Mimi the Austin Pets Alive Dog at Lou Neff Point

Austin Cupcake StreetArt on the piano at Lou Neff Point

Piano Man on the Pfluger / Lamar Pedestrian Bridge on Town Lake – Austin, TX

I Heart Music Piano – Austin, Texas

When you thought of off camera flash \ strobe triggers, there used to really only be one game in town, namely the Pocket Wizard Plus II triggers \ transceivers which are the gold standard of non TTL flash triggers.

Starting a few years back though, a lot of other companies started getting in the game. There were the Skyports, CyberSyncs, Radio Poppers, etc. They operated on the transmitter – receiver model where you would typically buy one transmitter and a bunch of recievers to fire all of your external flashes.

A few months ago, when the Chinese company Aputure asked me if I wanted to beta test their new Trigmaster Plus system, which is very similar to the Pocket Wizard Plus II transceivers in that each unit can serve as either a transmitter or a receiver, I thought it would be interesting to see how the Chinese triggers compared to the Pocket Wizards.

I also found their system to be interesting because each unit, like the Pocket Wizards can do a few things like trip the camera shutter, trigger the strobes, or serve as a radio receiver. Unlike the Pocket Wizards though, these units are about 1/3rd the price (I saw some units on Ebay for $55 with free shipping) and they also come with all the cables you could want for free (Pocket Wizard charges a lot for cables). That makes these units at least 3 times cheaper than the Pocket Wizard IIs with the same functionality enabled by default (you have to buy the extra cables for the PW).

The cables that come with the Trigmaster Plus include:

The other big difference is the fact that you can mount your flashes directly on top of the transceivers on the on-board hotshoe. This eliminates the need to use a sync cord from the transceiver to the flash, although you can still do that if you want to or trigger a second flash from one transceiver via a PC-sync cord as shown in the picture below:

The other cool thing about having transceivers that come with the shutter release cable for free, is that if you have 3 transceivers like me, you have 2 identical shutter release remotes, which is awesome for photo booth fun. I threw a party a month ago and left 2 remotes in the booth, allowing whoever to set of the camera, whenever. The result was a lot of really funny pics.

How well do they work? When you have the flashes mounted directly on the transceivers they work very reliably b/c no cables are involved (that could go loose or have a poor connection). There are a lot of switches and ports on the transceivers! It takes a while to get used to setting them to perform each task, but after reading through the short manual a couple times you will probably get the hang of it.

One thing that confused me a bit was the fact that the big button on the transceiver is only for shutter release, it’s not a test button. You need to mount the transceiver on the camera to trigger any flashes – you can’t trigger them by simply pressing the button.

Cables, for the most part are of high quality, except for the PC sync cord, which is of the standard variety you can buy on eBay. I’ve found that pc sync cords are the weak point in any wireless flash system, as the connections tend to go bad rather quickly. I’ve had many sync cables exactly like the ones that come with the Trigmaster go bad on the Paul C Buff CyberSync system.

You probably won’t be using the PC sync cable that much though, as the transceivers are designed to connect to the camera and flash via a hotshoe mount. This is an improvement over the Pocket Wizards, which again don’t have the flash to hotshoe mount option. With the Trigmaster Plus, you will only have to use the PC cables if you plan on connecting a transceiver to a flash via PC-sync cord or if you want to use a flash on camera at the same time.

The other two cables have a coiled cord much like the old school telephone cord and they are of great quality. I’m very happy with those and did not have any trouble with them when testing them. I have a feeling that the ability for the cord to stretch will prevent breakage over the long term.

A few final notes – The transceivers can operate on 6 channels and changing a channel is as easy as pressing a button. Sometimes changing the channel is a bit too easy though and you might bump the button by accident. Also, you can’t really see it in my pictures, but the transceivers have a standard tripod screw mount on the bottom so they can easily attach to a lightstand or tripod – this might take some getting used to type mount if you are used to attaching your flashes to a cold shoe mount. The Trigmaster Plus system takes standard AAA batteries, which is good because you can always find replacements at any convenience store or supermarket.

Overall, so far, so good – there are some minor complaints but at this price you can’t expect everything to be perfect. I haven’t played with these triggers enough or taken them to enough extremes to give a final verdict on range or reliability, but I will probably try them out on an upcoming photo shoot soon.

UPDATE 04/12/2011
I did some extreme distance testing in the open lot behind my condo and I was able to get Trigmaster Plus units to trigger a flash reliably up to 300ft, or the same as the 100m advertised by Aputure. By reliably I mean 3 successful triggers back to back while in burst mode on my Canon 5dmkII

In terms of distance, my estimate is based on Google maps. As you can tell from the pictures below, you probably won’t ever have to trigger from that far away. To test, I placed my flash at the fence on the edge of my condo, and walked out to the end of a field, triggering along the way. My maximum distance was from the end of the fence of my condo out to underneath a tree, far away.

In my test I used both the Paul C Buff Cybersyncs and the Aputure Trigmaster Plus units, and they were both able to trigger out to 100m. I did notice that when I got the transmitter / transceiver units of the different flash triggering systems too close to each other, there was some radio interference leading to reliability problems, so those carrying around multiple sets of triggers should be aware of this.

One interesting thing to note is that my slave flashes are Nikon SB-26 units and I am using the Aputure Trigmaste Plus units for Canon. I have also gotten the Trigmaster Plus transceivers to trigger an older Sigma for Canon flash that I have as well.

Has anyone else used the Trigmaster Plus? What do you think? Let me know in the comments!

February 3rd, 2011 marked the beginning of the year of the Rabbit and Chinese New Year in Austin, Texas was celebrated in style. Every year to ring in the new year, dancers from the Texas Dragon Dance Team perform their athletic, traditional dance routines in colorfully adorned and beautiful Chinese lion costumes. They perform this annual ritual to scare away evil spirits so that the local businesses who hire them to perform can receive good luck and receive wealth in the new year.

The Lion and Chinese Dragon dance routines are performed by dozens of dancers, who move to the beat of a giant Asian style drum and cymbals. Lion dancing is hard work – lifting heavy paper mache lion heads built on thick wooden frames gets tiring. Because of this, dancers are constantly switching in and out during the almost 45 minute routine that involves acrobatic kicks, jumps, and even many lion dancers standing on the shoulders of their teammates.

Each lion is operated by a pair of dancers, one representing the head, and the other controlling the tail. The team must work together in unison to portray a convincing lion. The lion head is especially lively – dancers may blink and unblink they eyes of the costume and the lion ears also move when the operator pulls a string inside of the lion’s head.

The Chinese Dragon dance is performed by 10 dancers, who each hold a segment of the long, serpent like paper mache dragon. The dragon head follows the motions a colorful ball that is attached to a stick which is carried by a runner that controls the motions of the dragon. Each dragon dancer controls a segment of the dragon and they follow the motions of the dancer in front of them, producing a life-like wave effect.

To purchase and use any of the following photos as a stock photography, simply click on the photo.

If you watch TDDT in action, make sure to bring some earplugs! They dance while very loud firecrackers explode all around them. They must be brave to put up with the smoke and the loud noise.

For even more Dragon Dance photos, stock photos are available here.