The Standpit by Sam O’Hare – awesome video of the UWS!

Local Upper West Side Artist Portrays New York in Miniature

Hi Columbus Circle Hostel Visitors and all of you Bloggers out there! We’d like to share a cool story with you today. It’s about Sam O’Hare, an extremely talented we think photographer residing in our neighborhood – the Upper West Side. At some point, we’ve all stood on the balcony of a very tall building and watched people walking on the street below, marveling at how much they look like tiny busy ants, right? And Sam O’Hare has been doing just that as well and he has taken tons of amazing pictures of New York from high above the street, editing his work in a style, called “tilt-shift”, that makes the city and its minions look miniature. The resulting 5 and a half minute film is made up of about 35,000 still photographs! Isn’t that something? He called the project “The Sandpit”.

The still above was captured from a building on 106th Street and Central Park West, though much of the rest of the film was shot in other parts of the city. There’s a longer explanation of the process he used to make the film here.

O’Hare, a director, visual effects artist, and photographer, came to Manhattan Valley via England two years ago. He’s an architecture graduate but evenutally moved into computer animation and film. And we’re sure glad he did if that’s what he can come up with! He’s now working primarily in commercials, and is represented by Aero Film.

So what inspired him to make this film?
“I love the look of the tilt-shift timelapse technique, and wanted to use it to explore my inspiring adopted home, New York City.”

You can check out the cool video in larger format here.