Bethesda Terrace

I was back in New York last weekend and as usual I had a list of things I wanted to shoot while there. There’s never a shortage of things to see and shoot in New York no matter how many times you’ve been there. I’ve been to Bethesda Terrace in Central Park many times before but always with hundreds of other visitors and while that’s okay for some street photography I selfishly wanted the place to myself.

My alarm went off at 4:30am and off I went. I grabbed a cab as I wanted to get there before the 5:15 sunrise time and as I got out of the cab two things happened. First I opened the door to the cab to get out and on the sidewalk were 2 rats the size of an external hard drive and second the cab driver told me to be careful. I thought he was talking about the rats and when I told him they’d already scurried away he said that he meant in the park. “There’s a lot of bad people in the park at that hour” Great…that’s what I needed to hear. I had already tried to put aside my concern about my walking through Central Park at that hour telling myself that it would be light soon and it wouldn’t be a problem. I was right. As soon as I started walking towards my destination I encountered joggers and cyclists and I immediately felt better.

As I was setting up my tripod and getting ready to start taking pictures a couple of more rats decided to run by my feet (surprisingly I didn’t freak out. I think they were more afraid of me then I was of them. Maybe because I used to have hamsters 🙂 )

Here’s the first that I’ve processed. I’ll have more later in the week along with a little history of the place.

Click on the image to enlarge (it really does look better) or to Purchase a print.