Woohoo! I killed my PB. To be honest, a ribbon would have been incredible, but I'll settle for a HM :).
I live only a few blocks away from this tunnel, and whenever I find myself walking by it, I always begin brainstorming ideas to capture an interesting image of it. Needless to say, when the tunnels and caves challenge came up, this location instantly popped to mind.
You can only really take long exposures of the tunnel from this end of the tunnel, because there is no median where the tunnel pops out - right in front of Grand Central Terminal.
I had been meaning to do a shot like this all week, but I was always busy doing something else. I ended up taking this picture at 10:00 PM, 2 hours before the deadline.
I started around 9:30 with different focal lengths ranging from 10-200mm. After taking a bunch of exposures with a few different lens, I found that I really liked the star pattern produced by stopping down my 50/1.4. Being NYC, I had no problem finding cars to create the light trails. I was standing on the median but my tripod was probably only 1-2 feet away from traffic as the entered the tunnel from the right side of the frame.
One last note. During the course of me screwing around with my equipment, I had an encounter with an NYPD sqaud car that doing laps throught to tunnel to stay cool on this hot night. The first time they passed me, they waved and I nodded. The second time they stopped to see what I was doing. I made it clear to them that I was merely an amature photographer practicing a hobby. Without them asking, I offered to show them the pictures I had been taking. They turned out to be nice guys, I guess they were checking to make sure I wasn't a crazy :) I just goes to show that if you carry a level head and leave the baggage at home, you can resolve sticky situations relatively painlessly.
-Steve
P.S. Processing included basic adjustments in Aperture, a little dodging on the light trails and burning on the trees (minimal), an Export to PS CS3, resize and USM x2.
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I like night shots, usually for the color, but your choice of B&W is EXCELLENT in this scene and the vehicle lights really make this unique. You may have a winner here. Very nice composition as well....good scene, but you are drawn right to the focal point by the lights. One of my top three in the challenge.
Many pictures are spoiled if there is too much going on in them but this one benefits from the mass of lights and shapes. You'd expect colour to play an important role but I think that in this case it would ruin the impact. A great picture.
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