Discover NYC Personal Tour: Dubos point

So a while back, earlier this year, I realized that I barely travel anywhere. In general, I barely travel at all. I also been living in New York City my entire life and I haven't seen my this cities own landmarks. (I really need to get out more) So thats when I came up with the idea of going to random places in the city in each of the 5 boroughs. My original plan was to take each train and try to go to a random stop. But then I thought that would take forever, so I wanted to go to special stops that had something to offer me instead of a regular boring normal neighborhood, like the WTC site, City Hall, the Brooklyn bridge, Roosevelt Island and many more places! But mainly, I want to go to the abandoned locations. I wanted to go to abandoned places when I simply typed in the word "abandoned" in Google and since I'm in New York the search results came up New York related and the first link was a website of the abandoned places in New York. I wanted to learn more and then visit these locations. (http://abandonednyc.com/)

I call this my own personal tour because that's pretty much what it is and what I am doing. I call it my 'Discover NYC Personal Tour' because I will tour around New York City traveling and finding out new things, to have new, young, fresh experiences because I want to and it'll be fun. This will be my plans for this summer so that way I won't get bored.

The first and easiest place that I wanted to go to was Dubos Point Wildlife Sanctuary, which in my opinion isn't even a sanctuary. Although, there is plenty of wildlife. This place is nothing but sand, grass, mud and marsh. My best advice is to stay on the sand and out of the grass. The grass is where most the marsh is, got stuck a few times when trying to cut through them. Plus, they're very tall and thick, not easy when you can't see where you're stepping let alone what direction you're going, and you don't know what plants or animals are in there. This place is technically not open to the public, but at the same time there is no one there to tell you not to be there. For more information, click 'here' or 'here'. Now without anymore reading, (assuming you did read) here are the photos I took while at Dubos Point Wildlife Sanctuary. Please read the caption for they tell my story.

As soon as I get there, not even in the sanctuary yet, there is a pile of trash such as a mattress and an old TV.

A broken wooden fence with more trash.

An abandoned naked doll in the pile.

Rotting old wooden pilings of an old dock.

More pilings.

More pilings.

I don't even know what this thing once was...

But whatever this thing was, It had some big chains.

Marsh Pond.

Another marsh Pond.

A baby doll, without a head. That's creepy & disturbing.

An old, still inflated truck tire.

 An old rotten boat frame.

A decaying boat in the sand.

A mysterious pipe, wonder what it is.

So close to the people who live here yet they have no idea.

Some plants don't mind some of the trash. Just shows you how little this place is used.

An old ships iron frame broken in the sand. Such a beautiful scene!

The engines to the ship, now rusted and covered with sea growth.

More rotten piling in a beautiful scene.

A nice shot of waves hitting the shore.

Some grass growing in a rusted, paint chipped old boat.

Another not so old broken, paint chipped boat. Maybe left there from hurricane Sandy.

A sorta still standing old wooden dock.

A boat permanently docked.

A rusted fire hydrant. Was there once a side-walk here? If not, then what's gonna catch on fire, water? Just kidding there probably was a side-walk here that was eroded away by the salt water and left this!

A lonely abandoned road.

A tugboat sunk and no one got it out.

Any treasure aboard?

An abandoned metal shed.

And it's all right here!

Water Drop Photography (experiment)

I already knew that there were still photos of these water droplets hitting a puddle, but I never thought that I could do it myself! The pros taking these photos have bigger better equipment and looks amazing!

Water Drop example photos

But then I found out that my simple point and shoot digital camera (GE W1200) with high resolution (12.2 megapixels) can take still photos with great detail in a split second. So then I was bored again and decided to try an experiment to capture water droplets. And to my own surprise, I actually captured them. These are the photos I took.

Reflection Droplet

Clear Water Tower 1

Clear Water Tower 2

Clear Water Tower 3

Red Water Tower

Faucet Stream

6 Green Droplets Levitating

Green Water Tower 1

Green Water Tower 2

Green Water Tower 3

I had to get my camera very close to the water. One slip of the fingers and my camera would've been drowning! And I only did this in my bathroom sink! Now every time I look at these, I am breathless to know that I captured these photos! And I would like to believe that this would start my professional photography career! =)

Entering the Spongebob Squareshorts contest!

So my latest film project was creating a spongebob inspired short film for the Nickelodeon film making contest they are hosting, where you must create an original film short inspired by the little absorbent, yellow, porous Spongebob Squarepants. The actual title of this contest is "Spongebob Squareshorts"

Spongebob Squareshorts

When I first heard about this I thought it was perfect for me to enter. I thought since I already enjoy making videos and short films, I thought I could do the same for this. So as soon as I heard about this, I knew I had to look it up to find out more. When I went on the website (spongebobsquareshorts.com) and read the assignment, I thought I could do this easily, but in reality, it was really hard to create a whole original storyline script. But once I got it flowing, it grew into a beautiful script. And in my mind, seemed perfect, but know I had to actually film it.

This is really my first video where I needed other people to play the characters, because normally I would play as all of the characters myself. But for this one I didn't want that. So after struggling and having harshly tempered conversations, I finally convinced my two friends, Issac Mata & Jose Romero, to play the other two roles in my film script. But then they wouldn't stop asking me to pay them for acting, but really? I wasn't going to pay them, because they were my friends and I not going to give money away like that. But getting to work with my friends to be in the video was fun, even though they wasted a lot of time messing up, but makes for a few funny bloopers. And I'm glad they were able to help be a part of it because without them, I wouldn't have the characters I need and I wouldn't have such an awesomely funny video!

Best Actors Ever

The editing process was very easy for me because I already knew what I needed in the video and how the story goes, simply because I wrote the script! I would say more but I don't know what to say because that pretty much sums it up.

Editing Process working out smoothly as planned

So all together, I'm glad how the results with my video came out. Creativity mix with hard work can make anything, and I am satisfied with what I made. So all I need to do know is wait and see if my video entry gets accepted. If I win this contest, that will be the moment where my hopes and dreams become reality.

UPDATE (July 19, 2013): Unfortunately, my short film was not accepted as a finalist. I am sad and disappointed but that's ok, because you know what they say, 'Hope for the best, Expect the worst', well that basically how it happened. Even though it wasn't accepted, I enjoyed filming and making it, and although I hoped to make it in the end, I can't stay sad because life goes on and we need to keep working hard to achieve our goals and to just keep on living.

I like Graphic Design

Graphic Design is a creative process, considered to be a form of art. Like any art, it is supposed to send a message. Graphic Design uses the combination of words, symbols, and images to create a visual representation of ideas and messages. I like to do it because it is fun and to make a cool, awesome look  or effect when  finished. The easiest way for anyone to do graphic design is through Photoshop. I don't have Photoshop so I use a website called splashup, which is almost just like it. About 2 weeks ago I decided to zombify I head shot photo of myself. So I went on Google to look for images I can overlay on the photo, and this is the result.

And about a week later my cousin, Daniela, came over my house and I decided to zombify a head shot photo of her.

When it looks good and scares you or at least creeps you out, then you know you did a good job. ;)

Art Show & Reflecting pools

So today, it is pouring outside, and that's nature so I don't care. I mean rain is only water and everyone drinks water and bathes in water. But there is a meme where people are bathing in weird stuff. Anyway, today I was with my friends at my school's art show. It wasn't anything that big and fancy, but it was still cool. Funny how me and my friend couldn't find the actual building that the art show was in. So basically we were kinda lost, but in the end we found it and met up with our other friends. Even before the art show and before we met up with our other friends, me and my friend, Jose, decided to go check out the 9/11 memorial reflecting pools. Which was the first time either of us went, and we were excited because of that but we couldn't be happy because it was a memorial.

WTC Reflecting Pools

It was very cool to look at and very beautiful. I had this weird feeling of emotions when looking at it. It kinda hit me that this was where the old Twin Towers use to be, and I felt sorrow for the people who lost there lives there. And I am disappointed that Jose doesn't know anything about the New World Trade Center. He doesn't even know what the Brooklyn Bridge looks like. If you don't know that, then you're not a real New Yorker. Anyway, after looking at the memorial for a bit, we decided to head towards the art show. I bought a cheap NY skully hat on the way there, and by then we were soaking wet. So then we just went into the building, got our passes, took an elevator to the floor it was on, and we ate free food. Like, literally, that's the main reason we went there. To support our friends, yeah, but we were very hungry. And we're in the same school, we seen the artwork before, so it's nothing new really. After that we left, got on the train and went home. In the end it was a good, fun day and everyone had a good time.

Art Show Pass & Memorial Ticket