New York Day 6

Today was our sightseeing day which turned out to be quite rainy. However, we still had a lot of fun and did visited some awesome places.

The morning started with a trip to Tinsel Trading. It was an incredible shop! I ended up buying a book and a few spools of metallic thread. I could have spent quite a while there. We also went to the Post Office. I didn't take a picture because it was so rainy, but it was huge!





After Tinsel Trading and the Post Office, we took the trek down to the Statue of Liberty. It ended up being nearly and all day thing, but it was worth the visit. It seems so small compared to the rest of New York, but when you are up next to it, it's anything but small. We took the ferry to the base of the statue and then went over to Ellis Island.



I wasn't quite sure what to expect from Ellis Island, but I was very impressed. The building has been very well restored and had a lot of interesting information about the immigrants that came through and what went on in the building. One of my favorite parts was the piles of old trunks and luggage they had stacked up.





After our visit to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty, we went back uptown to try and get Wicked tickets for the third time. Unfortunately we didn't "win" so we decided to go back across the city to the Brooklyn Museum. As would be expected, Annette and I cruised through quite quickly, while still enjoying the art that was there. They had a lot of work by Norman Rockwell as well as "The Dinner Party" by Judy Chicago.

Following our trip to the Brooklyn Museum, we met up with a few people from our group at a blues cafe for live blues music. It was awesome! I took some videos, but I haven't had time to make them web quality yet. Once I do I'll post them. I anticipated that the music would be good, but I have to say that was a great way to spend my last evening in New York.

New York Day 5

Today we took a rainy walk through Central Park and then went to the Met. I'm not going to lie... I'm not a big museum person. Don't get me wrong, I love looking at art. But I can only handle so much. The Met had a really cool exhibit on Stieglitz, Strand and Steichen that I spent quite a bit of time in. We also walked through some of the near eastern art exhibits on our way to the American Landscapes. It was really incredible to see so much art in so many varieties.



After the Met, Annette and I headed up to the Guggenhiem, which it turns out is closed on Thursdays. We did take some pictures. The building is really amazing. I love the simplicity of it.



Next on our list was a visit to the Cloisters. These were way up north but well worth the visit. I wasn't super excited to go, but I was very pleasantly surprised. It was quite different than anything else we had seen (which was mostly modern art) so it was rather refreshing. I loved all the different columns with their various shapes and colors. I don't remember seeing so many different colors of marble pillars before. There were also a lot of flowers near the windows and in the atrium in the center of one of the rooms. It really was a pretty sight.









We took the subway back to the heart of Manhattan and had dinner at Dean and Deluca, then waited in line to see if we could get Wicked tickets... which we didn't. We were pretty tired though and decided to shop for a little while, got some cheesecake at Juniors, then went back to the hotel and went to bed!

New York Day 4

Our 4th Day in New York was quite an adventure. We started by touring Canoe Studios. It was a similar space but a lot more laid back. Still, huge studio spaces with all the equipment you could possibly need. One of my favorite things about the studio was they had a kitchen where the owner would frequently cater meals for the photographers and crew who were shooting.





After touring Canoe, we went over into Brooklyn for delicious pizza! The pizzas had fresh mozzarella and basil and ours was topped with pepperoni. Grimaldi's also served home made Brooklyn rootbeer which was wonderful! Definitely comparable to Brick Oven.





Our next stop was a bit tricky to get to. Our guide today was one of John's former students named Chris. He was very familiar with Brooklyn, however, in order to get from Grimaldi's to Gilt Group (which was in the shipping yards) we got to walk through the slums. It actually wasn't nearly as scary as I thought it would be. Gilt Group was rally interesting to see. They are an online store that sells name brand items at a discounted price. They do all of their photography in house which is what we went to see. While their space was not nearly as glamorous as Canoe or Milk, they still had tons of equipment. There were about 10 photo shoots going on while we were there. It was pretty interesting.

After our tour of Gilt group, we walked down to the Brooklyn Bridge and took some photos. Before we started the walk over the bridge, we stopped at Jacques Torres to get hot chocolate (and other chocolate treats). It was so delicious! The hot chocolate was so thick and chocolatey I was afraid it was going to solidify at any moment.



We ended the evening with another trip to Max Brenner where I had more fries and a delicious chocolate hazelnut shake. It was wonderful! One of the girls got an apple crisp something that was also delightful.



After eating at Max Brenner we walked around Strand Books for a while and then walked through China Town. It was fun to see all of the bright lights and various types of stores. It was pretty rainy so we tried to stay inside as much as possible, but still a lot of fun!

New York Day 3

Day three started with a visit with John Moe, a fashion photographer. From there, Annette and I went to Moomah Cafe for lunch. I twas a really cute restaurant/craft center for moms and kids. The food was great, and it was super cute! Then we went up to the SoHo Magnolia bakery. We



After lunch, we met with StudioCase where we learned a little bit about how graphic designers and photographers work together in advertising campaigns. Afterwards, we walked through the Chelsea District as well, including the Chelsea Market where I saw quite a few shops from Where Women Cook. It was a beautiful place!



One of the highlights of the trip was our grand tour of Milk Studios. This building has several large studios (1500-10,000 sq feet) that photographers can rent out. It is pretty much a 5 star hotel except for photo shoots. The people there were very open and willing to answer any questions and even offered to let us all come work for them :)



Even though we were extremely tired, hungry, and cold, we decided to go to the Empire State Building on our way back to the hotel. The view was amazing, but it was very windy so we didn't stay long. We were mostly focused on finding something to eat and were very happy to have burgers, fries and shakes from Shake Shack which was around the corner from our hotel. Delicious!