Sixth Avenue Bokeh {NYC Night Scene}

As I impatiently rocked my stroller back and forth at the crosswalk in an effort to keep my children asleep, I got bored. Clearly, I have no patience.

I was momentarily mesmerized by the leaves silhouetted by oncoming headlights, but that only took up a few seconds of the wait through this inordinately long light. I checked the status of the lit up red hand as the cabs flew by. Alas, still red.

I gazed down 6th Ave, noticed all the colors, and had a flashback to last summer when I devoted an entire evening to creating colorful night scenes using available light. And instead of sprinting across Central Park South when the green man lit up, I rocked the stroller through two more traffic light cycles before continuing on my way.

same view- shot in a different way:

and an office building a few blocks down:

when I normally shoot, I aim for tack-sharp images. The night scenes below (except the first one) are created using the exact opposite technique to produce the desired effect- they are completely out of focus. Simply turn off your auto-focus, adjust your focus ring so that the image is blurry (out of focus), and shoot away. Turn the ring to increase or decrease the size of the dots.

Try it sometime.

I double dare you.