Iconic world land­mark and sym­bol of New York. What do you visu­al­ize when you hear the name Times Square? The ani­mated dig­i­tal bill­boards, of course! They’re called spec­tac­u­lars and what a per­fect name! Mil­lions and mil­lions of LED lights. It’s one thing to see pic­tures, and another to stand there and look around and soak in the entire experience.

Mar­i­lyn and I were excited about vis­it­ing Times Square at night. She wanted to exper­i­ment with her tilt/shift lens and see whether Copy­right Hell could be brought to its knees with some cre­ative blur. Hav­ing been to Times Square a few times before, I wanted to dis­tract my claus­tro­pho­bic mind from the fact that thou­sands of peo­ple would be milling around me — and, yes, all of us sit­u­ated within just a few city blocks — by con­cen­trat­ing on zoom­ing. Alright, so maybe we BOTH wanted to do the impos­si­ble and erad­i­cate the names and logos while pre­serv­ing the lights and col­ors. We didn’t bring TS to its knees, but we sure had a great time shooting!

I’ve included my favorite zoom shot and Marilyn’s bril­liant com­pos­ite (orig­i­nal shot on the right, Mari cre­ation on the left). In the end, the woman is just more stub­born than I am about achiev­ing a goal. And she pos­sesses killer Pho­to­shop skills to make it happen. ;)

Candice’s Zoom Fave

Marilyn’s Before and After Composite

Images avail­able with a RF license: Busy Streets

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