Citylypse 2010 Summary

After 2,200 miles, $42.25 in tolls, $237.23 in gas money, $41 in cab rides, and 8 hotel rooms, Citylypse 2010 is officially over.  I am back in Richmond recouping after a very long trip.  8 cities in 9 days was quite the ambitious challenge but we proved it was possible. 

I now have cityscapes up on iStock from Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, & Louisville.  Cincinnati & Columbus will follow.  Now we just have to wait for the sales to kick in.  That generally takes a month or so and it will take a year or so to find out whether or not the shoot was profitable.

Thanks to all for following along and for the feedback.  Here is a summary of the cities I visited:

Columbus, OH

Just a short 2 hour roadtrip from Cincinnati was Columbus, Ohio.  Columbus is a somewhat spread out city with forks of the Scioto River winding through the downtown areas.  With so much water, the cityscape possibilities are great with each location showing different buildings and a completely different look at Columbus.  The tough part is getting enough into the pictures.  It is hard to get back far enough to see a lot of the city so I found myself shooting a lot with a wide angle lens.

The rain did hold off for us in Columbus (for the most part) but there were a lot of clouds.  We chose to shoot from North Bank Park last night.  I have never seen so much goose poop in my life.  It was quite literally everywhere.  You couldn't take a step without stepping in it.  I dug back into some brush and camped out for dusk.

The big challenge of last night came in the form of the geese themselves.  The branches of the Scioto River flowing through Columbus are quite calm so you get a great reflection of the buildings but the geese were swimming right through the center.  I tried sweet talking them but that didn't help.  I tried to bully and yell at them - they weren't fazed.  They just swam back and forth right through the center of my picture.

This may have looked cool but for the fact that these are dusk shots so they are 30 second exposures.  You don't actually see the geese - just weird streaks through your buildings.  I finally had a rare moment of brilliance.  I dug into my pack and pulled out a Nature Valley Oats & Honey bar.  I broke the bar up and began flinging pieces into the water well out of the view of my picture. 

Two of the four geese cooperated and swam over for a treat.  Unfortunately one of the two geese was very aggressive and kept the other two geese away.  He later chased one in the opposite direction so I was left with just one goose to attempt to clone out of my images.  I ended up going through 4 packages of Oats & Honey bars (with 2 per pack - those geese ate 8 Oats & Honey bars!).

The highlight of the night was when an enormous river rat climbed up on a branch 10 feet in front of me.  I had heard that rats could get pretty huge but I had no idea!!!  This thing had to be 8 inches long (body only).  He eventually plopped into the water and swam down stream.

When the magic 10 minutes of deep blue sky appeared, I nailed down this shot.  I am not a cloud fan but at least these clouds made the sky interesting.

This morning I took off for Genoa Park while Dave and Shelley returned to North Bank Park.  While I didn't get anything brilliant at Genoa, it was a neat view.  I shot with a 12mm lens which is VERY wide angle.  The clouds were moving and I was shooting with a 30 second exposure which captured the movement.  Here is the result:

The animal sighting of the morning was a river otter.  He was swimming down the river and stopped right in front of me to chew on something he had picked up along the way.  He was pretty cool.  I will confess, though, I originally thought he was a snake.  I really do not like snakes.  I am not scared of bears, spiders, or rats but snakes will send me running for the high hills.  Well, maybe not running, but I definitely don't care for them.  So I was psyched to see the otter's head pop out of the water when he approached.

Well, my friends, this brings our cityscape tour to its conclusion.  We are getting cleaned up now and will soon be heading back to Harrisburg.  I am thoroughly exhausted and feel like I need a vacation - I think my day job will feel like a vacation after this.  But this trip was definitely worth it.

As a good start to the "worth it", my Detroit cityscape just received an Initial Rating on iStock.  Initial Ratings are given by inspectors when they really like an image they inspect.  Out of my 1,030 images on iStock, this is just my 3rd Initial Rating.  Hopefully the sales will follow! 

Now on to the post processing.  I will post a summary of the trip either this evening or tomorrow.  Thanks for following along!

Cincinnati, OH

Rain, rain, go away, come again another day! It rained and rained and rained while we were in Cincinnati. It was nasty last night and this morning but those were the only chances we had so we did tried to make the best of it.

See if you can picture this. Me standing on the side of the Ohio River in the pouring rain as the water level is getting closer and closer to to covering my feet and the legs of my tripod. Boats going by are causing wakes that are splashing over my feet while I frantically hold on to my tripod in hope that my camera won't float away. My left hand holding an umbrella over my camera so it doesn't get wet while my right tries to get the positioning of the camera right and the settings modified. To an onlooker, this probably looked pretty ridiculous. But when you only get one shot at shooting a city, you do what you have to do.

As you would probably guess, the pictures didn't turn out as well as I would have liked. My favorite of the bunch was fromt this morning when the rain slowed down a bit.

And I did get one with lightning flashing behind the city but it isn't sharp (think of how your visibility drops in the rain).

We are now sitting in our hotel in Columbus, Ohio facing yet another rainy day. Maybe we will catch a break and it will slow up for us - if not, I'll be out there with my umbrella in one hand fumbling through another shoot.

Cleveland, OH

Next stop was Cleveland, Ohio. We arrived around 11:00 and began to scope out the best place for our night shots. We eventually found our way down into the Flats - a section of Cleveland that lies down by a canal and looks back at the city.

I was instantly hooked. There is an awesome, huge white bridge that I could tell lit up at night and led your eye right into the city. I made up my mind that I was going to shoot from there tonight. Dave and Shelley decided to head out near the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame while I headed back to the Flats.

Upon arriving in the Flats, I realized that I was slightly lacking in an ideal shooting environment. First, there were literally thousands upon thousands of seagulls swarming the sky between me and the city. Another onlooker remarked that it felt like we were at the scene of a National Geographic film. This, of course, worried me a bit as there were streaks of white flying all over the sky.

The second challenge came in the form of the ice. The ice had moved down the canal from earlier in the day and was floating directly in front of me. This messed with the reflections in the water but did make the shot a bit more interesting.

The final challenge was a cloudy sky. The clouds were thin but they were a bit grey. This generally prevents you from getting a good deep blue sky. They came in and out so I just kept shooting hoping to nail a shot when the clouds were not so thick.

On the safety front, in this case I was actually pleasantly surprised. Our waiter at lunch today (Hard Rock Cafe) said he wouldn't recommend going down in the Flats at night. He said the buildings are largely abandoned and a lot of people go there to get in trouble. Before heading out, I asked the desk attendent at the hotel and she told me there was nothing to worry about (yes, I probably would have gone either way - I know, I know, mom). Sure enough, the "abandoned buildings" were actually condos (albeit, definitely not high end condos). There were people walking their dogs and an older lady and gentleman taking pictures. Definitely not a dangerous environment.

Here is Cleveland:



Tomorrow morning will afford another shooting opportunity in Cleveland. After we come back and get cleaned up, it is off to Detroit, Michigan. The weather in Detroit looks a little iffy so our streak of great shooting conditions might come to an end. Keep praying!

On the personal front, I added a new ailment to my aching feet and legs. My lower back is now in agony. Add in my cold and I am a mess. We stopped at a gas station today and I bought Dayquil, Nyquil, and Advil. The lady at the counter looked at me with concern in her face and exclaimed "you must feel absolutely awful!". Yep! So the glamorous lifestyle of a professional photographer current entails leaving at 5 AM, returning at 8 PM, and lots and lots of pain. I love it!