This is a shot of Grand Central Terminal in midtown Manhattan. The image was taken at 7 am, just as the morning rush hour was getting started. I didn’t have a tripod with me (and the transit police probably would have hassled me anyway) so I just set my camera on the staircase railing. I wanted to use a relatively slow shutter speed to capture some movement, but I didn’t want everything to be blurred. I really like the fact that there is a mix of people who are blurred, and others who aren’t. This images is a toned black & white converted from a color image, but in reality the color image doesn’t look that much different.

This image is of a local apartment building located near the University of Michigan medical campus. This part of town has many rental units, but most are either converted houses or more mundane apartment buildings. This building was built in 1929 and is a great example of the Mediterranean Revival architectural style. I took the shot mid-morning when the sun was shining on it at a nice angle and I really liked the strong shadows created by the unique architectural elements. I wasn’t able to get the shot of the building straight on, there were people working on a house across the street which prevented me from getting a good angle. I ended up taking the picture from a slight angle and then relied on Photoshop to help with some perspective correction. I made a few other changes to bring out the detail of the building which I discuss on my Image Notebook blog.

This is a shot of a local restaurant/bar in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The weather here has been cold and snowy for some time, and when we had a nice day following a storm, I decided to take advantage of the sunny day to walk around town to see what I might find. I started out using my 70-300mm telephoto (2x crop factor) because I wanted to get some detail shots. As I was walking up Main street, I noticed this restaurant from across the street. I had always liked the typography of the restaurant’s sign, but this time there was just a bit of snow on the front which added something to the image. I particularly liked the bits of snow on E’s.

I was working through my Lightroom catalog this morning, working on adding keywords to some images when I came across this picture taken of Hill Auditorium. Hill Auditorium is located in Ann Arbor, Michigan on the campus of the University of Michigan. The architect was Albert Khan. This particular image showcases some of the fine detail work which exists in this building. In particular, this shot shows a tile embedded in the brickwork on the front of the auditorium. The tile was manufactured by Pewabic Pottery in Detroit, Michigan. This image has had minimal processing done to it, some simple curves and sharpening and that’s about it.

This shot shows Federal Hall in New York City. The site of Federal Hall, located on Wall Street, is where George Washington took the oath of office as the first President in 1789 and was also the site of the first Congress, Supreme Court and Executive Branch offices. The original building was torn down in 1812 and ultimately replaced with the current structure in 1842. The new structure served as the country’s first customs house. This picture was taken during a gray, snowy day, and my processing attempted to keep that feeling. The image was originally in color, but the color image and the final image aren’t really that much different in tonality. The other thing I did was to pump up the grain. If you look carefully, you can see streaks of snow in the image as well.

The Renaissance Center in Detroit, Michigan was built in the mid-70’s. At the time, the thought was that this new set of buildings would help provide for a ‘renaissance’ of the city of Detroit. Alas it wasn’t to be. The building was more of a fortress than anything else. It had large berms which faced the main street, and the other side was the river. This created a structure which was more of an island than anything else. A couple years ago, General Motors purchased the buildings and moved it’s world headquarters to it. There was a bit of irony in this, since the Renaissance Center (aka ‘RenCen’) had significant funding from the Ford family.

One day I was sitting at home when I noticed that some interesting clouds were forming in the sky. I took this opportunity to head in to town and do some architecture shooting. I had been wanting to get some more shots of the new Stephen Ross School of Business building on the campus of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. The building offers some interesting opportunities for architectural photography. There are many different colors, textures and shapes to explore. …

This is a shot of the entrance to the University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA). The building was originally built as Alumni Memorial Hall. A Beaux Arts style building completed in 1910, the building was built as a tribute to University of Michigan graduates who had died or were wounded in the Civil War, the Mexican-American War, and the Spanish-American War. The building became home to the museum in 1946. A new addition to the museum opens this weekend and architecturally is a dramatic contrast to the original structure (but in a good way.)

This is a shot of the new Ross School of Business building on the campus of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. The building was recently opened to students. I took this shot while it was under construction.

This is a picture of the Auburn Hotel in Auburn, Indiana. I recently had a day off of work and I decided to visit the Auburn/Cord/Duesenberg Museum in Auburn, Indiana. Auburn was the home to the Auburn Automobile Company which eventually was owned by the Cord Corporation. The Cord Corporation manufactured Auburn, Cord and Dusenberg automobiles.