December 1, 2008
Guided West Village walkabout, photo pro in the lead
NewYorkology contributor Anna Links has been sizing up some of the newer tours on offer in NYC, including the Staten Island pizza tour, and most recently, a Photo Walk-about. Her report:
My digital camera is well used and certainly worse for wear. It’s met many pavements and spilled beverages and resides primarily at the bottom of a messenger bag. Our mutual agreement is thus: I use it liberally and it does not crap out on me.
Until recently however, I failed to notice some of my camera’s subtleties. Mainly, that it has a manual setting. And I don’t know how to use it.
Enter Lora Danley and her Photo Walk-abouts.
A professional photographer and licensed tour guide, Lora leads historical walking tours interwoven with brief photography lessons that offer ample opportunity for experimentation. She offers three Walk-abouts: Central Park at 1 p.m. on Fridays; Greenwich Village at 10 a.m. on Saturdays; and Wall Street at 2 p.m. on Saturdays. Each tour takes about 2.5 hours and costs $20, cash only.
Her Photo Walk-abouts illuminate historically and visually interesting places in the city by encouraging you to conduct your own photographic exploration. I join her for the Greenwich Village tour on a brisk Saturday morning, with ample evidence of the previous night’s Halloween parade still scattered around Father Demo Square, our meeting place.
We begin with a basic photography lesson that covers rules of composition and camera functions. Lora encourages us to be creative, to take pictures from odd angles, to squat down and look way up, to take abstract photos and at least one portrait.
It’s at Lora’s behest that I agree to make friends with the manual setting. Our first stop is St. Luke’s Place where we learn about the colorful inhabitants of the street, so many that a handout is necessary, highlighting the homes of poet Marianne Moore, former mayor Jimmy Walker and the exterior of the Huxtable’s house from The Cosby Show (at No. 10).
 There is no dearth of material with the trees in the prime of fall, stately brick and brownstone facades and the errant boa feather from the parade. Lora’s directive to “Go forth and photograph” is easily obeyed. She happily reviews our photos at each stop but is there mainly for encouragement and improved camera stewardship. My pants get dirty from kneeling for a few shots, my coat is smudged from rigging up a tree-trunk tripod but I like my pictures and find it very satisfying.
Next, at the garden of St. Mark’s in the Fields we get a lesson in lighting and I’m warming up to this manual setting idea. I photograph the same curling leaf ten times with different settings, the same leaning rake, the same sun-dappled wall and I feel I’ve discovered photography, even if the best pictures are still happy accidents.
We pass by the Cherry Lane Theatre and on to Bedford Street where No. 75 1/2 was home to Edna St. Vincent Millay, Cary Grant and John Barrymore. At Grove Court, a resident unloads a trunk full of decorative cabbages for the courtyard and the gate is open, allowing a rare glimpse of it’s shady idyll, but I’m shooed out before I can adjust the camera settings. Automatic still has its uses.
We finish up at Christopher Square Park, bordered by the Stonewall Tavern and the Northern Dispensary and I’ve yet to take a portrait.
Ken Johnson and General Colonel Popcorn Pimp are happy to oblige for a dollar each, and while they insist that I get one shot only, they exercise editorial privilege and demand several retakes.
The Photo Walk-abouts aren’t in-depth history or photography exercises but an entertaining introduction to both. It’s an easy way to get comfortable with a new camera or to introduce a visiting friend to New York’s attractions.
Lora stays behind to answer questions or look at photos but I feel pretty good. It’s early afternoon on a Saturday, my pictures aren’t half bad and there’s still time for brunch.
Picture credits: Anna Links.
December 1, 2008 11:12 AM in Cheap Stuff, Downtown, History, Sightsology, Techology, Tours, Upper East Side, Upper West Side
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