Beavers and blue skies

To counterbalance another gray day I decided to post images of my Sunday trip... When I showed one of my aikido teachers my project she told me about the 8 St - Astor Place station and that she was especially fond of some of the tile work there: An image of a beaver... I was happy to go and check it out as I don't use that station much... I'd rather take the 8 St. stop on the N, R line since it is so close by... (By the way, I can never really figure out what the difference between the N and R is... Almost like the 1 and 9 in the old days...) Anyway, it was a great sunny morning with blue skies... A little cold, but pretty... I usually prefer more subdued light when working as I can bring up the contrast later if I want to... But I guess that's what this project is about: Adapting to different circumstances...



Sunday mornings are great for taking pictures in the streets of New York... Although the city apparantly never sleeps, it is definitely quite slow early on Sundays... But since the trains are scheduled not as frequently people tend to get stuck inside the stations longer... So note to self: Getting up early on Sundays is good for this project when the weather is right! Above image is from the entrance to Astor Place station.



Another detail from the same entrance.



I haven't seen an entrance quite like this before... The iron work (scales? feathers?) on the roof I have encountered before though... In gray at the Wall St station (4, 5 line) and in black at the Borough Hall station in Brooklyn... Beautiful!



Scale structure against window structure...



A friendly person pointed to the mirrored building and remarked that it would make a great shot with it reflecting the older buildings around... At first I was not convinced as I didn't see how to connect it to the subway... I guess I came around after all! Thank you, kind person!



The red K is in the back! Not sure if the composition is really working, but decided to post it anyway... This project is a work in progress, the images and the selections are not really finalized yet...



Shapes and color...



I sometimes hesitate to use this kind of image as I learned in my formal training that this is not the official way of shooting architecture! Things should be straight! And not at weird angles... But sometimes I find that straight angles don't quite give me the content I want and I try to embrace this more photo journalistic look...



The famed beaver! Lovely indeed!



And finally some more modern art... By this time the day had progressed too far to shoot inside in peace and I headed home...