Manhattan Cityscape

Manhattan cityscape, NYC. 

© Simon Ackerman Photography - All Rights Reserved

www.simonackerman.co.uk

Photography in New York City

I previously posted some work on my blog during a 10 day stay in New York, which received some particularly great feedback. This summer is was lucky enough to leave England and jet off across the pond for a 90 day stay in the USA. A majority of my time was spent living in New York in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Since my first trips to the Big Apple last year in 2012 I discovered that NYC has an enormous wealth of interesting and beautiful things to photograph.

During my time living in NYC I shot many portfolio shoots with some amazingly talented creatives and we had a whole plethora of fantastic locations to choose from.

The first shot featuring the Empire State Building shot from the top of a high rise of apartments I was staying in on 6 ave and 24th Street in Manhattan about a block from Macey's. The model is Kelly Gray from MC2 Model Management.

The 2nd shot is from a half days shooting in Dumbo in Brooklyn. It was particularly tricky to get the shot as I we had to keep stopping for traffic, I was however really pleased with the final shots that we got from the shoot. The model is Caroline Thompson also from MC2.

Just before I left to fly to New York I was watching an episode of Doctor Who. It was the story Angels in Manhattan and it gave me a little bit of inspiration for a shoot in Central Park, two of which are below. There's a scene with Matt Smith sat on a rock reading a book in Central Park which is where the original idea was conceived. We shot in early July using available light and a 5 in 1 reflector, it just happened to be during a heatwave so between sessions my assistant had to shield model Guilia from the sun so she didn't break out in a sweat. We prepped at David Ryan salon in Hell's Kitchen which is where the book prop came from. It was a joke book of bad haircuts containing mullets and just general bad hair from the 1970's.

The hair was done by Jill Schnapp and the makeup by Jen Evans.

The image below was shot on location around Hell's Kitchen, this shot was taken next to the USS Intrepid which left for some interesting backdrops. 

The hair was again done by Jill Schnapp and makeup by Courtney Culkin.

I've put together a few of my favourite cityscape and architecture shots from the trip. This are just shots that are taken out of passion, I however contacted by a real estate company in Manhattan who follow my Instagram who wanted to commission me to shoot four of their buildings in Midtown so they could frame them in their office. I've included many of my Instagrams, feel free to follow my account: simon_ackerman 

  

Manhattan Cityscape shot from Brooklyn

Franklin Avenue Subway in Brooklyn 

Street Art at 5 Pointz in Queens

This is a shot of the filming location of Michael Jackson's Bad video shot in Hoyt-Schermerhorn station. 

Hell's Kitchen Cityscape

Apple Store on 5 ave

Crown Heights in Brooklyn

Creative Traffic Lights

Street Art at 5 Pointz 

Art in Jay Street MetroTech

Coney Island Beer

A summer day's chess in 14th Street Union Square

FDNY responding to an incident in 10 ave, Manhattan

Coney Island

Dalai Lama mural at 5 Pointz in Queens

Skyscrapers in the Financial District

Myrtle–Wyckoff Avenue Subway

One World Trade Center

 My plane bound for Las Vegas at the American Airlines lounge at JFK

Mural at 5 Pointz, Queens

Graffiti at 5 Pointz, Queens

Hell's Kitchen Cityscape 

Manhattan Skyline shot from the Rockefeller Center

Pigeon at the Empire State Building Observatory

World Trade Center

Sunny day in East Village

Manhattan Sunset

© Simon Ackerman 2013 - All Rights Reserved

www.simonackerman.co.uk 

New York City

New York is one place I have always wanted to visit, I finally had the opportunity a couple of weeks ago and the city went completely beyond my expectations. My trip was primarily for the Fall 2012 New York Fashion Week but it turned into a great adventure inside and outside of fashion week. I had finally made it to the last of the big 4 fashion weeks after previously shooting London, Milan and Paris. Not only that but this was my first time out of Europe making the trip even more exciting. Prior to my trip I decided there was only one logical place in NYC to visit first: The Empire State Building.

One of my photography ambitions has been to shoot cityscapes from the top of the Empire State Building. I spent more than an hour shooting from the observation tower using a Canon 28 - 300mm L telephoto lens. These shots were taken at around 8am Wednesday February 8th 2012, this was the day before NYFW and the only day I had for travel photography. 

I was happy with the shots I took and they were exactly what I needed to use for the new 'Travel Gallery' section of my new website. During my next visit to NYC I'm planning a nigh time cityscape of Manhattan.