“Concrete jungle where dreams are made..” It’s been quite a while since I last posted, over a month to be exact. A lot has happened in that time with the major reason of my absence due to the start of my new job as an Electrical Engineer in New York City. I love it..so far.It’s always been my dream to work in this great city - a city that will never get old no matter how many times I’m there. This year has been one of tough decisions, taking risks and not settling for less than what I know I’m capable of. Needless to say, it’s been a long road. I’m blessed and very thankful for this opportunity to work at a top-rated engineering consulting firm - working alongside and learning from some of the brightest minds in the industry. As I get settled into things at work and take care of this tremendous photo backlog (I still owe my sister photos from our visit to Korea..back in April!), I will start to update this as frequently and regularly as I did before. So keep an eye out for my latest work and thank you for all the inquiries - your support of my photography is why I continue to enjoy it as much as I do. ~ JR Pena
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“Concrete jungle where dreams are made..”

It’s been quite a while since I last posted, over a month to be exact. A lot has happened in that time with the major reason of my absence due to the start of my new job as an Electrical Engineer in New York City. I love it..so far.

It’s always been my dream to work in this great city - a city that will never get old no matter how many times I’m there. This year has been one of tough decisions, taking risks and not settling for less than what I know I’m capable of. Needless to say, it’s been a long road. I’m blessed and very thankful for this opportunity to work at a top-rated engineering consulting firm - working alongside and learning from some of the brightest minds in the industry.

As I get settled into things at work and take care of this tremendous photo backlog (I still owe my sister photos from our visit to Korea..back in April!), I will start to update this as frequently and regularly as I did before. So keep an eye out for my latest work and thank you for all the inquiries - your support of my photography is why I continue to enjoy it as much as I do.

~ JR Pena

I recently had the Canon TS-E 45mm f/2.8 tilt-shift lens on loan for a week from Canon Professional Services. It was one of the lenses I made sure to bring with me when I went to the Top of the Rock Observation Deck. A neat feature of tilt-shift lenses is the ability to manipulate depth of field by tilting the lens left/right or shifting up/down. For this photo, I aimed my camera towards Brooklyn, NY and then tilted the lens to the right at the Empire State Building. This is to achieve “selective” focus which renders surrounding buildings out-of-focus. Had a lot of fun playing around with this lens, definitely useful in many situations. New York, NY
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I recently had the Canon TS-E 45mm f/2.8 tilt-shift lens on loan for a week from Canon Professional Services. It was one of the lenses I made sure to bring with me when I went to the Top of the Rock Observation Deck. A neat feature of tilt-shift lenses is the ability to manipulate depth of field by tilting the lens left/right or shifting up/down.

For this photo, I aimed my camera towards Brooklyn, NY and then tilted the lens to the right at the Empire State Building. This is to achieve “selective” focus which renders surrounding buildings out-of-focus. Had a lot of fun playing around with this lens, definitely useful in many situations.

New York, NY

Been wanting to try this shot for the past 2 years now at Top of the Rock Observation Deck at Rockefeller Center. Why the long wait? Well for a shot like this where you have to pay for access to a rooftop observatory..you want to get everything right. That means making sure the clouds and sky are ideal and actually having an open schedule (very rare for me) to spontaneously take a trip into the city. One of the things I wanted to have for this photo outing was a Joby Gorillapod since tripods are not allowed and a radio remote trigger release to aid in taking the shot. While using the Gorillapod, I actually met a tourist from San Francisco, CA who’s friends with the CEO of Joby - very random! I actually overlooked the fact that being close to summer, the sun would set in the direction of Hoboken, NJ instead of the direction of the Statue of Liberty. The northern hemisphere is tilted towards the sun this time of year so will definitely revisit this shot towards the end of the year in the winter when the sunset and sky will be more dramatic. New York, NY
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Been wanting to try this shot for the past 2 years now at Top of the Rock Observation Deck at Rockefeller Center. Why the long wait? Well for a shot like this where you have to pay for access to a rooftop observatory..you want to get everything right. That means making sure the clouds and sky are ideal and actually having an open schedule (very rare for me) to spontaneously take a trip into the city.

One of the things I wanted to have for this photo outing was a Joby Gorillapod since tripods are not allowed and a radio remote trigger release to aid in taking the shot. While using the Gorillapod, I actually met a tourist from San Francisco, CA who’s friends with the CEO of Joby - very random!

I actually overlooked the fact that being close to summer, the sun would set in the direction of Hoboken, NJ instead of the direction of the Statue of Liberty. The northern hemisphere is tilted towards the sun this time of year so will definitely revisit this shot towards the end of the year in the winter when the sunset and sky will be more dramatic.

New York, NY