Taken in February, 2012 before I got serious with this blog (there are only three posts prior to February 2012). Shot inside Grand Central Terminal. For some reason I really like this picture. In fact I like it so much that I have a print of it on my wall. I’m not entirely sure why: it’s underexposed, completely out of focus and noisy. Somehow with all of these things out the way only the composition comes through: the diagonal line of the escalator leading down to the figure carrying the suitcase. Then from there I think the eye goes to the two figures to the top right. I think it also helps that much of the escalator (including the figures on the left) is in darkness while the man with the suitcase and the other figures at the top are all in the light. As the book title suggests “it doesn’t always have to be in focus” (Why It Does Not Have to be In Focus: Modern Photography Explained by Jackie Higgins).

Taken with a then quite new Sony NEX 5N. I don’t recall what lens. The metadata does not provide a lens so it must of been an old legacy lens and judging from the timing I believe it was a Canon 50mm f1.4 in Leica Thread Mount. The camera was fairly new then and I wasn’t familiar with focus peaking and focus magnification so I mis-focussed quite a few shots (particularly at large apertures) until I figured out how it worked.