Shot with Canon 5D, 200mm f/2.8L II
@ 200mm, f/2.8, ISO 640, 1/2500s

You always hear about people in NYC owning telescopes so they can [creepily] look in the windows of buildings across the way. So just for kicks, one of the shots I was constantly on the lookout for was a through-the-window ‘gotcha’ moment. Nothing dirty… I mean, I don’t really know what I was expecting to catch, but every once in a while I had to remind myself to look up into the windows as I walked in the streets of NYC. Here’s one such moment. About half a second later, he closed the curtain. I don’t think he wanted to be my friend.

Processing doesn’t get much simpler than this one. My custom Lightroom preset, Grayscale, Punchy started things off, upped the exposure by about half a stop, and played with the tone curve a little.

(I love shooting with Canon’s 200mm f/2.8L by the way… wish I had more reasons to use it day-to-day.)

Shot with Canon 5D, 200mm f/2.8L II
@ 200mm, f/2.8, ISO 640, 1/2000s

I don’t know if I’m alone in this or not, but I really find this shot interesting. The lines, the shapes, the textures, the tones… they all combine to make something special to me. And maybe it’s the little boy inside of me that sees these rooftops like some sort of cool urban tree-house. I’m also fascinated with ‘the city way of life,’ as I’ve mentioned several times before.

The view from my back porch is a large, open field. With cows. The visuals in the city… the simple things that New Yorkers probably don’t notice or appreciate in the same way as I do… are 180 degrees from what I’m used to. And that’s one of the things that I’m trying to capture in my photos of NYC. The essence of the city. The simple elements that help define its character.

In processing this shot, I started out with my custom Lightroom preset Grayscale, Punchy. From there, I adjusted the color temperature, exposure, contrast, clarity, black clipping, cropped in just a tiny bit, and finally I made some very minor exposure adjustments in key areas with brush strokes.

As a sidenote, I highly recommend experimenting with color temperature adjustments when working in grayscale if you’ve never done that before. It might seem counter-intuitive to adjust color temperature when you’re not working in color, but it actually makes a huge difference in the tones. You can really make extreme adjustments when you’re not working with a portrait, as well.

Shot with Canon 5D, 200mm f/2.8L II
@ 200mm, f/2.8, ISO 640, 1/160s

I enjoyed the way that the cook was partially obscured by the slight reflections in the kitchen window. Look closely and you might see yours truly.

Processing started out with my custom Lightroom preset, Sepia 2, then I adjusted the tone curve, cropped, added clarity, and brushed in some slight exposure adjustments to even out the tones on his shoulder.