My New York City Black and White Photography Portfolio
In a past life I was a photographer in New York City.
In 1989 I left what I thought was an expensive $800 per month studio flat in Honolulu, Hawaii with views overlooking Magic Island park across from the Ala Moana Shopping Center. I moved with my new wife to a brownstone in New York City between 2nd and 3rd Avenues that was $1000 per month AND we had to walk up many steps to reach our apartment on the 6th floor…
New York City is a city of contrasts. The wealthy and the pennyless. There are people walking up and down the street that are worth anywhere from zero dollars to hundreds of millions of dollars. I saw Donald Trump many times… I believe he was worth over 1 billion at some point if my memory is correct.
As a photographer I would walk the streets and take photographs all day long if I wasn’t working at one of my other photography related jobs. Sometimes I would walk for 15 hours up and down the streets of Manhattan. Of course I’d sit occasionally and wait for something to happen. It was a really wonderfully freeing past time. I took paparazzi photos, artistic color slide photos, advertising photos and even shot models portfolio photos. Incredible thing to do - be a photographer in New York City. I made barely enough to survive, but still - wow, what an experience.
I have stories about things I’ve learned as a result of being in New York City from 1989 to 1991 that I’ll share with you here as this blog matures. I just wanted to share some black and white photography with you that I put into a portfolio of sorts with Adobe Acrobat.
Unfortunately Adobe thinks PDF’s should not be of black background and so it changed the settings to create a white background for all the images and changed the text to black. I really don’t understand the wisdom of it - yes, it will help someone print it without using their entire store of black ink. Wouldn’t it make more sense to ask the user just before printing it out?
So, to me it looks 80% better with a black background. If you want it to have a black background you can alter the settings in your reader by following these links in Acrobat reader:
Edit | Preferences | Accessibility | Choose the checkbox for “Replace document colors” | Custom Color radio button (circle) | Page background - turn to black | Document text - turn to white | OK
If anyone knows how to make Adobe Acrobat Professional save my Word doc with black backgrounds as black - please write me!
These images were taken in 1989 and maybe 1990. They are mostly of homeless people, though there is a fight, some accident footage and some other demonstration type photos that are included.
When I get my hard drive from my brother in New York I will be able to put together a much better portfolio including John F. Kennedy, Jr., his mom, Woody Allen, and some other artsy type photos to balance out all the negativity.
Until then, enjoy these! New York City Photographer Black and White Portfolio e-book >
If you have any questions - just let me know by comments.
Thanks!
Best of Life!
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