Midnight stroll

I took a nice little stroll around the city with my girlfriend last night (doesn't she look cute?), and we ended up at Rockefeller Center, just before they killed the lights, giving us just enough time to take a few pictures, the best of which, incidentally, were the ones that were programmed not to use the camera's flash.

So yeah, few interesting points, huh? Apparently the lights for the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center are turned off every night just after midnight, and this is the city that never sleeps???

We found out this interesting little fact the hard and freezing way, as we made our way uptown on New Year's from the comedy club where we greeted the new year with almost unstoppable laughter. So I can just picture it: as the ball at Times Square finishes its traditional drop, the lights at Rockefeller Center are killed... how funny would it have been if they had killed the lights at Times Square too... Anyway, this is not supposed to be a negative entry.

We had a great time on New Year's, and we finally got our Rockefeller Center fix last night. I don't remember ever being as impressed with the place as I was last night, and I must truly say that it was absolutely breath-taking.

The other interesting point is that when there is just enough light, using the camera's flash actually seems to ruin the picture somewhat: most of the pictures we took without the flash really revealed an amount of background detail that I did not know was even possible with a non-professional camera. In fact, the amount of light captured by the camera when you don't use the flash (and this may vary depending on the amount of light present) can actually outperform the human eye, so the pictures could actually look better than what you actually see with the naked eye!

So, not only have these holidays been great, now we've learned a great new way of capturing awesome memories... happy new year, everyone!