This really is the building that the filmmakers used as their model for the creepy finale scene in the imaginative 1984 comedy. In real life, it is the Shandor Building, which was built in 1929 and is registered in the U.S. National Register of Historic Places, due to its architectural merit.

GhostbustersCopyrighted Digital Photograph

The Quality of Light

I was hurrying back to my hotel via Central Park today, because down the canyons of the East-West cross streets I could see a powerful rainstorm moving in from the West. It was serious enough to cancel flights into New York’s airports and for the city to send an emergency flood warning text message to everyone in the area with a cell phone. Impressive disaster emergency management, I thought.

I also thought that, not only was the slate-grey sky threatening, it was beautiful. Since the weather system was a few miles to the West of me, soft, late afternoon light still shone onto the buildings on Central Park West. This sparked my interest in taking this image. To me, it seemed that the contrast between silky grey sky and the façade of the building, particularly enhanced both the delicate colour progression and the Art Deco detail of the architecture.

Frustrations

Light combinations like this constantly stop me in my tracks. It used to give rise to feverish fiddling in my backpack for the right lens, followed by a few moments concentration on the ideal camera settings and then anguished gnashing of teeth as I watched the desired light effect disappear as I raised the camera to shoot.

Since I had been imaging plunging views down the canyons of Manhattan and distant detail on New York skyscrapers, I had added an extender to my 200mm zoom, increasing my “reach” to 280mm, in case of need. This is a heavy item, which was attached to a monopod in order to assist with the critical focus quality required by a Nikon D800. I decided not to risk being caught in the open during a hail and thunderstorm and to just shoot with what I had.

Neither could I risk scouting out a better view of the building through the trees, so I quickly framed the composition, cutting out the adjacent buildings by using the zoom and took the shots. It is possible that the light stayed interesting for a while afterwards, but I was scuttling to the safety of my adjacent hotel by then and got indoors, just as the storm broke.

Technical

Taking the image under the above-mentioned conditions was an aperture compromise between the generally poor ambient light and the depth of field needed to keep the trees and the building in focus. For that reason, I set an irritatingly high ISO of 800, to allow me to reduce the aperture and still obtain a speed that would not provide a shaky image.  This ISO setting seemed very unusual for mid-afternoon on a summer’s day in New York, but my aesthetic juices were being triggered by the unusually challenging lighting conditions and I accepted its necessity.

With the ISO decision taken, I set an aperture of F8 to gain reasonable depth of field and then dialled down exposure compensation by 0.7 to soften the harsh contrast of the upper levels of the building. The result of these adjustments was a shutter speed of only 1/40^th second.

I therefore “assumed the position”, not sprawled on the ground at the instruction of the police, but spreading my legs behind the monopod to create a human tripod and relied on the lens’ vibration reduction to improve my chances of decent quality.

Camera: Nikon D800

Lens: 70-200mm VR f2.8 Zoom, with 1.4x extender attached.

Focal length:    155mm

Vibration reduction: On

Focus Mode: AF-C

Aperture: f/8

Shutter Speed: 1/40s

Exposure Mode: Aperture Priority

Exposure Compensation: -0.7EV

Metering: Matrix

ISO Sensitivity: 800

Mounted on a Monopod

Sentimental Journey

Finally, I love this building for another reason, the fact that my former apartment in New York looked down on it. See another, wintertime, view of the Ghostbusters finale scene, viewed from above in the New York section of my portfolio here:

http://www.photeinos.com/p594908929#h2e445c66

I hope that you enjoyed sharing my sentimental journey. Please leave a message with your thoughts.