Drew Skwarcan Photography

Quandary Peak

admin — Thu, 26 May 2011 19:22:35 +0000

I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I decided on a whim to climb my first “14er”. Jeans, running shoes, and a light jacket weren’t exactly ideal equipment, but I guess hindsight is 20/20. Also, did you know that you can sunburn your eyes? That night I experienced a new type of pain. It was pretty scary. Actually, for a couple hours during the night I thought I was going blind (couldn’t open my eyes, excruciating pain, etc etc).

This is a photo from the summit of Quandary Peak, at 14,265 feet.

Soon I’m going to write a full-length blog post over at DrewSkwarcan.com/blog/ with more photos, videos, and details of the whole oxygen-deprived experience (and about what it’s like to walk through 4 feet of snow in running shoes). To be sure you don’t miss that post, go to the blog and enter your email address in the right sidebar.

[This photo was taken with my iPhone 4's camera and created using an app called Autostitch. It is a panorama stitched together from 10 individual photos.]

Flee to the Tropics

admin — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 18:45:15 +0000

Slowly but surely fall is turning into winter here in the Midwest… and lately the temperature has been getting dangerously close to skip-town-and-flee-to-the-tropics weather. (I’ve been monitoring the price of a one-way ticket to Honolulu…)

This photo was taken January 19th, 2009 – the same day that I climbed Oahu’s north shore.

I love the four horizontal layers in this photo: the red soil, the grass, the mountains, and finally the sky.

Epic Seahorse Battle

admin — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 23:34:05 +0000

It seems a bit ridiculous to rob a sunset of its color, but I really like how this turned out. Check out the contrast of the smooth waves at the top and the sharp, jagged clouds closer to the horizon. The small rigid clouds near the horizon look like the silhouettes of sea horses in battle. (kinda?) Also notice the silhouetted telephone lines in near the horizon on the right half.

Reminds me of summer nights.

TiltShift Pittsburgh

admin — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 23:03:50 +0000

I’m jumping on the bandwagon big time here, but the tiltshift effect is too fun to not experiment with. It even made an appearance in the new Facebook movie, The Social Network.

I took this photo when I visited some friends in Pittsburgh this summer.

Silent Disconnect

admin — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 19:39:15 +0000

Have you ever found yourself in a situation that felt like it was about to turn into a horror film?

Imagine a curious photographer stumbling into an abandoned factory through a broken down freight elevator – the floor thick with dust and scattered papers. An old textile factory, I guessed.

The afternoon sun cheerfully lit the red brick on the outside… but inside the air was stale, dark, and mysterious. With each staircase climb the wooden floorboards felt a little thinner.

It was exhilarating, partly because the building was surrounded with barbed wire fence and “no trespassing” signs. Curiously, none of the photos from inside turned out too well.

Take another look at the apparently cheerful facade in this photo. I wonder what stories those black windows could tell…

Warped

admin — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 00:29:44 +0000

Like most of the city, Time Square is a lot to take in at once. This 180 degree lens gave me the upper hand. The quality isn’t great, but I like the immersive feel.

One on One

admin — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 05:40:00 +0000

This is another shot from New York City. After the complexity of Time Square, this single high rise satisfied my urge for simplicity - One interesting building on one afternoon sky. This is the type of shot that I’d love to frame on my wall someday.

(I’m hard at work on a new photography-related project that I’m really psyched about. Anyone who is interested in digital photography and/or digital photo editing will want to keep their ears open for the announcement sometime next week. More details soon!)

Broadway

admin — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 17:34:10 +0000

Broadway was in a good mood that night. I don’t remember crowded sidewalks or sirens; I remember the perfectly warm night air, the energy, and the flow. There was no spare attention to put towards the worries of tomorrow. It was a night to indulge in the moment.

Cage the Beast

admin — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 15:01:10 +0000

Time Square is sensory overload. It’s confusing, beautiful, and actually really really difficult to photograph. I found that it was tough to compose a shot in the midst of that chaos. Selecting one element to focus on was nearly impossible. It was definitely a good workout for my photographic eye – a new challenge as I asked myself “Okay, this is isn’t like the Midwest… how do I capture something here?”

When I look through the viewfinder of my camera, I try to remove as much as possible from the shot. If you’re a photography buff, forgive me if I’m not using the right terms – but as a general rule I feel that the less attention-grabbing elements in a shot the better. I try to minimize the number of components. The first few photos I took in Time Square looked like a headache. Buildings, taxis, faces, billboards, street vendors… a hundred elements screaming at your eye.

When I snapped this shot (walking north on Broadway around 46th Street) I smiled. I captured something. Isolated.

To me, this shot is a twist in the script. It shows the exact struggle I was referring too – a fellow tourist trying to cage the beast.

Central Park Reservoir

admin — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 20:52:52 +0000

It was beautiful in New York City last weekend. Unlike my first visit to NYC back in April, this trip was near perfection. (I have a couple more great shots that I’ll be sharing over the next week or so).

This view is looking west across the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir. The two-towered building is The Eldorado at 300 Central Park West – a luxury housing cooperative. Not a bad view…

Kelsey and I rented bikes so that we could explore a larger area of the park – an excellent choice and easily one of the highlights of the trip. The weather was ideal and the park was bright and cheerful. Everyone seemed to be in a good mood.

We took our time (stopping every half mile or so to take photos) and lapped the park in about two hours. It was a fun cycle of peaceful straights and wooded bends. (Did you know Central Park has serious hills? It does. We did work.)

This is an HDR shot (huh?), although not as surreal as my first HDR post a couple weeks ago. What do you think? Should I experiment more with HDR or should I stick to the basics? Let me know what you think by either a Facebook “like” or a comment.