Mr. Monkey Man


August 16th 2021
Mr. Monkey Man

Monkey Man

So I went out to lunch the other day with my buddy Charlie. He’s more of a hipster style guy, typically hanging out in the capitol hill area of Hudson Valley. He’s also an avid climber, something I know enough about to not sound like a complete dumb ass, but still no where near the level at which he’s at. He goes climbing all the time. Something that sounds interesting to me, but I’d rather spend my time taking photographs of things that I find interesting.

We decided to go to City, O’ City in downtown Hudson Valley. It’s a nice little place, I really liked the atmosphere. Kinda dark, definitely a hipster hangout. Not that I’m anywhere near hipster. Just not my thing, but he’s real into the wearing whatever he wants, because the wei

rder he looks the better. If you want an idea of hipster you can look here (might not be work safe). I’m more of a preppy guy, but I try not to judge. Whatever makes you happy is what makes you happy. City O’ City was some good eats. I’m not typically the veggie type but I did like what they were serving me. I got a nice little pizza that I think had some version of a meat substitute on it. Not enough meat for me, but no biggie.

Charlie and I were sitting next to this group of 4-5 random people that we didn’t know but for some reason they had this monkey that was hanging out with them too. Apparently they had gone to a garage sale, and someone gave them the monkey for free. Pretty cool huh? After a little bit they pulled up a chair for Mr. Monkey. It was a pretty classic photo op, but I had to wait for one of them to get up before I could swoop in and get a good shot. Here’s a little tip, if you’re going to be a little bit sneaky, and don’t want to involve yourself too much in random people have your camera all ready before you lean in for the shot. Meaning I had set my ISO, and white balance, and got my camera in aperture mode before I even got close to taking this shot. I’m sure they would have been cool about me taking the photograph, but I just didn’t quite feel like talking to them.

This shot was taken at ISO 1000, f/2.2, 1/100 with my 85mm. And if you’re wondering, ISO 1000 on a d700 is freaking amazing. I still can’t believe the kind of crystal clear shots that I’m getting with my new toy. I pulled it into lightroom to just play with the contrast a bit. I ended up not using the first few versions of it, and instead went with the simple barely touched shot. Lately with my d700 it seems like I’m liking the crispness of my pictures so much that I don’t want to muck with them by playing with the colors. All that was done to this is maybe some curves style contrast adjustments and that’s about it.

For some reason this shot makes me want to sing in my head “Mr. monkey man, Mr. monkey man…. “. Apparently I’m a little strange today.

-Dave