Memories of the Staten Island Ferry

In July 2008, I went to the United States of America to take a break from finishing architecture school earlier in the year. I already started my apprenticeship in the architectural firm of Luis & Associates at the time but got permission to take a 4-week long work break since I was still fresh out of college and I was not doing anything specific for the office yet.

I had quite a number of experiences during that trip, it being my first “solo trip” (albeit with college friends coming along at various parts of the tour) as well as the first adventure I had fielding a DSLR Camera. One of the more memorable events was right after visiting Wall Street and I decided that I wanted a photo of the Statue of Liberty.

So to get a good shot, you actually need to ride a ferry! This ferry, the Staten Island Ferry goes from Manhattan to Staten Island and takes a route that allows photographers to take a photo of the Statue of Liberty from a more landscape type angle rather than usual “worm’s eye view” you get by being on the island where the statue is located. The ferry port was a treat, with some 19th century port infrastructure still visible here and there to take photos.

Wanting to see Staten Island anyway, I took the half hour trip to between the islands to have a photo of the Statue (being a newbie photographer with artistic aspirations at the time). It was the first time I have ever ridden a ship of this size, so the ferry itself was a new experience. Once the ship got underway, the view of the ships and New York gave me lots of photo opportunities to test out my camera (A Nikon D60, one of the first “consumer” entry level DSLRs). The view of Manhattan was nothing to sneeze at either:

You can see the ferry port in this photo. This is one of my first “panoramic shots” from a camera. I spent most of my time at the railings of the ferry watching the sights and sounds of New York City.

But eventually, I did go inside to see the ferry itself for documentary purposes.

This particular shot (below) from the interior to one of the doors was particularly pleasing to me, as it had sharp contrasts between the people watching from the railings and the ferry interiors.

Eventually, the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge came into view as well (with a cargo ship!).

Finally, the time came to see the Statue of Liberty from the ferry:

This was my best shot. I only had an 18-55mm lens at the time and this was the one at 55mm so I am not getting any nearer than this angle. I was applying the rule of thirds to the shot and made the Statue of Liberty the central element of the scene. I found the smattering of ships and people in and around the island interesting details to add to the photo.

Eventually, all ferry rides need to end (for the first part anyway), so we ended up on Staten Island (not many photos there as the batteries were almost out by that point). I do remember shopping in a Wallmart there for a Zac Efron High School Musical Singing Ballpen that a friend specifically asked for (it was the aughts, and Highschool Musical was a thing). The return journey to Manhattan Island allowed me to take a few more shots, with the highlight being the Brooklyn Bridge before the battery of the camera died.

Overall, I remember this part of this trip fondly because of the ship riding generally—as well as my first attempts at artistic photos.

If you want to read more about my travels, I also talked about Lake George and the High Line in a previous post.

For my architectural posts, you may like to read about how I ended up on a roof of a hospital or how the Call of the Void needs to be addressed in architecture.