I am so excited to be spending a week in New York City! It is such a vibrant, energetic city. I arrived on Sunday, got settled and did some last minute preparations for the workshops. Specifically, I went to the Apple Store on 5^th Avenue, which I learned is open 24/7, to buy a card reader with a lightning adapter that can directly hook up to an iPad so that I can upload and edit my photos on my ipad while in New York. Monday, I participated in two photo workshops. The workshop instructor who I will be working with this week is Zim, a professional photographer who grew up in Southern California but has lived in New York City for 15 years. Our first group workshop took place at Grand Central Terminal. The group was given access to a catwalk high above the main terminal where we were able to take blurred motion pictures of the main lobby below. I learned so much yesterday about shooting on a tripod, long exposures, matrix metering and exposure compensation. All of these are important in order to capture good pictures and motion in challenging lighting. The second workshop took place in Brooklyn where we had the opportunity to take photos of the Brooklyn Bridge as well as the Manhattan Bridge at sunset and at night. Here I used what I had learned earlier in the day to capture good night photos, and I learned a lot about white balance and what a difference it can make in a photograph. I can tell I am going to learn a lot about how to improve my photography this week while exploring New York City.

Brooklyn Bridge at Night-Julia Taylor