Taking on New York: Part 5 - Finals Days

Since this is a storied series, I want to link the first 3 installments here: Journey to New York - Part 1, Journey to New York - Part 2, Taking on New York - Part 3, Taking on New York - Part 4.

Day 6: Making an NYC Photoshoot.

Sunday, July 16th, rescheduled photoshoot day!

We woke up and got ready to go to church at a Presbyterian church in downtown Manhattan. It’s a church that a pastor we really love, Tim Keller, started.

The service was fantabulous! Truly.

Then it was time to find an outfit for our photoshoot.

Just when we’d finished shopping, I got a Facebook message from the photographer we were trading photoshoots with.

She bailed.

It was Sunday, we’d been shopping half the day for the rescheduled photoshoot that was supposed to be happening in a few hours. And she bailed.

So now I was pissed. Livid.

I had just found my outfit. I was ready to frolic around the streets of New York and look like a fabulous woman with her husband celebrating their 5 year anniversary.

But I was somewhat prepared for this. In the back of my mind I knew when she asked to reschedule she might bail.

So I’d gone over a potential plan in my head.

After reading her FB message canceling, I looked up, took a deep breath, smiled, and told Trey we would be doing the photoshoot on our own.

Then I raged a bit, was quite sad, pitched a fit, and just generally vented to Trey.

He reassured me many times that it would be amazing.

“You are a badass photographer and my baby. You can do this. You kick ass as a photographer. We will buy a tripod and you will set it up and it will be awesome. I know you can do this.”

He just kept saying things like this until the time of the photoshoot the next day.

But at the moment, we didn’t have time to go get the tripod and get everything ready for self portraits.

So we bought a pizza from down the street, bought some high life, got drunk, and went to ride the Staten Island Ferry to see the Statue of Liberty, which was scheduled for Monday evening...but we had a sudden need to flip the two evening’s plans...obvi.

It was a blast! We listened to our New York City playlist, while tipsy, on the subway ride to the Staten Island Ferry, and I sometimes sang out loud with the songs.

Which I can pretty much guarantee you that people were beyond annoyed by us. I would’ve been annoyed by us. But we didn’t care in the moment. We were really embracing the spontaneity and making the best of a semi devastating situation. Because even though we would still have photos of us in New York, I knew they wouldn’t be the dream I had planned. The magical dream was dead and “good enough” had replaced it.

She was beautiful. I just wanted to stare at her all day. Sit there and write, photograph, and take in her glory for hours.

Which I could have done, except that this was a last minute flipping of plans, so it was dark and we had to get off.

That evening is one of my most fond memories of New York.

Day 7: Last Full Day in NYC

Monday started with coffee/latte/espresso. Like every morning. But this morning we stayed up on the outdoor lounge area, overlooking the city, eating our trail mix breakfast and drinking our coffeeish mix. It was amazing.

Then it was off to the American Museum of Natural History. Which I swear I said wrong every time I tried.

To be honest, we didn’t love this museum. I thought for sure I would, I love science. But I just wasn’t really that fascinated.

So we went through the parts that we really wanted to and took in the knowledge. Then we went to get ready for our photoshoot.

P.S. Check out the subway art for the Museum of Natural History. So cool!

First step, get a tripod at B&H, the best place in the world. All the photography gear (and other tech stuff). Everywhere. I order all my gear from here, and I got to go inside. OHMYGOD YAS!!!! I was like a kid in a candy store.

Ok, back to the photoshoot prep.

We went back to the hotel and got ready.

Which took Trey 10 minutes and me about 2 hours.

I was nervous so my makeup application was slower than normal.

Taking longer means I was not on schedule, not being on schedule means the sun wasn’t in the spot it needed to be.

So, now we had to use flash and we didn’t have time to get to Central park or a street with low foot traffic.

That means that we literally just walked right across the street from our hotel, because that location had an alcove to put the tripod in. So maybe people wouldn’t run into it.

I was still freaking out.

I mean, now officially nothing had gone as planned. Not even my backup plan. So the photoshoot couldn’t even be close to what I wanted in my head.

But Trey was being calm and lovely, thankfully.

He was just standing there while I got my settings and got the lens focused. And after some sweetness from him and a few test shots, I relaxed and we started having fun!

Which is exactly what you need for lovely photos.

People were being so nice, they stopped when they saw me dart across to where Trey was and pose.

The photos are not what I wanted originally, but they are wonderful.

We looked amazing, the background/atmosphere is so New York, and we have sweet photos of us in New York City. I’m happy.

And the last photo is beyond perfect.

Trey surprised me by dipping me. That look on my face is my actual “OMG, how sweet and cute!” face.

And after that photo, my memory card was full. So that was the end of our photoshoot.

But not the end of our last night in New York City.

After that last shot, we looked at each other, reading each other to see if the we were thinking the same thing.

We were.

And that thing was “This is our last night in New York and we both look too amazing to go sit in our hotel until morning.”

We wanted to go have nice drinks at a rooftop bar in manhattan.

So we did.

We found a bar called Bookmarks at the Library Hotel.

Super cute right?

We had really amazing drinks, one each. It was wonderful. We just took it all in. The people, who were not tourists, and the atmosphere. The view, the sounds. And remembering our amazing week in New York Citeh!

Then we went to our trusty pizza spot a block from our hotel, got some beer, and went to the lounge balcony to take in the view while we had a slice of pizza and drank some. The view and sounds of the city were amazing.

Then we spent the rest of the evening watching Jane The Virgin, drinking, and eating pizza. Yummy.

We tried to drink all the beer so we didn’t have any left over, but we failed. So, in my tipsiness, I decided we would drink the last three the next morning.

We’ll see how that plan works out along with our plans for driving to Colorado the day after we land in Dallas.

Because like I’ve said before and we’ve seen, nothing has been going as planned.