As an experienced photographer in photojournalism, advertising and fashion, Jean-François is the perfect person to guide you for a photo-tour. Attentive to details, he will teach you to pay attention and to take advantage at every situation.

Jean-François studied at the prestigious Louis Lumière School of photography in Paris and shared his life between the city of love and New York.

He has worked for Abercrombie & Fitch, New York Woman, Ann Klein, Oscar De La Renta, Details, Revlon, and Macy's among others, as well as diverse fashion catalogs, annual reports and corporate events, in studio and exotic locations too with world renowned models and such various luminaries as Yoko Ono, HRH Queen Rania of Jordan, HRH Princess Madeleine of Sweden, actor Donald Sutherland, Steve Forbes and Mike Tyson have adorned his portfolio.

His intuition, spontaneity and sensitivity are elements of his savoir-faire. His philosophy advocates that you just don't take pictures, you create images. Jean-François will help you to visualize and conceive images taken out of the ordinary.

Those who have taken a photo tour with him will all agree: Gildo knows A LOT about photography! The right angle, the proper exposure, the best composition… As a New York native, he teaches to see the city differently and to have fun photographing it. More than a photographer, he is a full artist who experiments his art all over the world. Gildo’s life was recently narrated in an article published in “The Queens Courier”. You will see how this talented artist from Queens found the success in Manhattan and around the world. Gildo visited 28 countries and took hundreds of photos that you can admire on its website.

As a native New Yorker, Gildo is the perfect photo guide. He knows all the unique ''sneaky'' places of the Big Apple and all the best points of view. His photo tours are an unbelievable experience that mixes photography, architecture and history. "I'm happy to be with citifari because now I can share my creative vision of NYC with everyone" said Gildo. And so are we!

New York est emplie d’endroits uniques qui ne manqueront pas de vous impressionner et de titiller l’instinct du photographe qui sommeille en vous. Cela dit, il existe un endroit où vos sens seront en éveil permanent: la High Line. Ancienne voie de chemin de fer surélevée transformée en parc urbain, la High Line a ouvert les portes de sa première section en 2009. Logée dans le Lower West Side, elle s’étend de Gansevoort Street dans le Meatpacking District à la 34e rue dans le quartier de Chelsea. Oasis de verdure et de tranquillité, elle offre une vue insolite de la ville. Lieu de rencontres et d’échanges culturels, elle est également une plateforme pour la promotion d’un art urbain, accessible à tous les visiteurs. D’une superficie de 160 hectares, elle est le plus long espace vert suspendu du monde et un incroyable modèle d’écologie urbaine.

Petite visite guidée. Dégainez vos appareils photos !

La High Line traverse trois quartiers de Manhattan en plein essor : le Meatpacking District (quartier des anciens abattoirs), West Chelsea et Hell’s Kitchen au nord. Commencez votre visite par un tour dans le charmant quartier de Chelsea et profitez-en pour immortaliser les jolies maisons parfaitement alignées (rowhouses) qui font le charme du quartier. Prenez votre petit-déjeuner à l’Empire Diner (210 10th avenue) et admirez le style délicieusement rétro de cet authentique « American diner ». Continuez votre chemin en direction du nord jusqu’à la 28ème rue et prenez les escaliers qui mènent à la High Line. Traversez la High Line du nord au sud jusqu’au Meatpacking District. Tout au long de votre promenade, admirez la vue exceptionnelle sur la Manhattan, les œuvres d’art originales rythmant le parcours, ainsi que le subtil mélange d’architectures longeant le parc. N’hésitez pas à jouer avec les éléments de la High Line (végétation, œuvre d’art) lors de vos prises de vue, cela rendra leur composition vraiment intéressante. De plus, le fait d’être à plusieurs mètres du sol offre des panoramas de la ville méconnus jusque là.

Ne manquez pas l’impressionnante fresque de l’artiste français JR (image n°1) ou l’immense panneau d’affichage « the billboard » qui accueille les travaux d’artistes temporaires. Ces œuvres d’art géantes sont l’occasion de prendre de surprenantes photos de New York. Soignez votre cadrage, l’illusion n’en sera que plus vraie !

La High Line est aussi un endroit de détente où il fait bon flâner dans la végétation… faites une pause sur l’un des nombreux bancs et admirez la vue ! De petites aires de repos existent tout le long du parcours comme le square de la 10ème avenue qui possède un espace vitré surplombant la circulation. Attendez qu’un taxi passe et prenez-vous en photo au-dessus de la circulation. Succès garanti !

Terminez votre promenade au Standard Hotel dans le Meatpacking District et admirez l’architecture de cet extravagant immeuble enjambant les voies de chemin de fer. Déjeunez au Standard Grill (848 Washington sur la 13ème rue) et faites un tour sur leur patinoire en hiver. Explorez le quartier en plein essor du Meatpacking District et terminez votre promenade par une visite du fameux Chelsea Market (75 9ème avenue, entre la 15ème et la 16ème rue).

Pour plus de conseils, participez à un tour photo de New York avec citifari. Accompagné d’un photographe professionnel, citifari vous emmène à la découverte de la ville et vous aide à prendre de magnifiques photos grâce aux conseils avisés de spécialistes. Au sein d’un petit groupe de photographes amateurs, vous apprendrez à utiliser le mode manuel de votre appareil à l’aide d’exercices photos réalisés à chaque point de vue. Pour plus d'informations, rendez-vous sur notre page Tours

Pour plus d’informations sur:
- la High Line
- le projet artistique de JR
- les tours photos de citifari

Citifari Photo Tours were featured on NYCTourist.com as one of the best tours in NYC for tourists who love photography. NYCTourist.com is an authority NYC travel site since 1996, providing tourists with the inside scoop on all the best things to do, places to stay and deals in New York City. Check out the article here: http://www.nyctourist.com/citifari-photo-tour

We are proud to announce that for the ninth year in a row we have been ranked in the top 10% of Tripadvisor's businesses and won another certificate of excellence thanks to your reviews.

Thanks for sending us your good words, they mean a ton to us.

-- the citifari team

We are proud to announce that citifari has also been featured on ABC New York as one of the tour recommended by a resident while visiting the city. The TV report has been made by Matt Kozar from Flushing, Queens and broadcasted on ABC New York metro Eyewitness News program.
Enjoy the video on ABC’s website (starting at 1:00):
http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/html5/video?id=8942181&pid=8942438§ion=news/lifestyle#

The beginning of the year 2013 has been full of good surprises! Citifari has been featured by CBS as one of the 7 best New York City tours. Here is an extract that perfectly reflects our philosophy : «Great tours do more than show you landmarks. They help you understand a city by providing context, detailing history, and sharing insidery secrets. They get you off the bus and out walking around. The seven tour companies that follow do all that, and so much more».
Read Jessica Allen's full article here : http://newyork.cbslocal.com/top-lists/7-best-tours-for-nyc-visitors-residents/

Starting today, Citifari photo tours will be offered by Experiences — an easy way to discover, plan, and pay for awesome things with your friends, new from GroupMe. Thanks to Experiences by GroupMe, groups of friends will be able to book a joint photo workshop experience in New York.

GroupMe was founded by Jared Hecht (previously Tumblr) and Steve Martocci (previously Gilt Groupe). GroupMe is now part of the Skype / Microsoft family. Experiences is their newest project, helping friends get together better in the real world.

Connect with your friends and book your Citifari experience today on Experiences.

On the night of September 29 to 30, New York was illuminated by the Harvest Moon which is the name for the full moon nearest the autumnal equinox. At that time, the moon is bright, huge and full-looking for several nights depending on how far North you watch. In the Northern states, the Harvest Moon will continue to shine until the beginning of October (http://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/harvest-moon-2)

Harriet asked citifari a unique request: a photo tour to capture the Harvest Moon. Native from Texas, Harriet would travel to NYC just to capture that moon. She has been dreaming of that shot all of her life. At citifari, we like new challenges, we wanted to unique on Saturday evening. We met Harriett and her friend for a downtown walk chasing the moon. As the moon rises east, we started from the piers, then we went to the Brooklyn Bridge and we finished our special tour with capturing the moon over the Manhattan skyline from Brooklyn Bridge Park.

The exercise was not easy. As the moon was rising up over the buildings; we had to be at the right place at the right time! We spent a lot of time discussing about the itinerary. What was the best place to photograph the Harvest Moon? At what time was the moon at its zenith? Through our calculations, we also noticed that the moon could be perfectly aligned with the Brooklyn Bridge.

Even if the sky was overcast on September 29th, Jean-François, the guide for the evening taught the group how to take great pictures of the cloudy sky.
Strong of these explanations Harriet and her friend came back the next evening to finally capture the moon ex-clouds!
We thank Jean-François for his precious advices and Harriet for proposing the Harvest Moon Photo Tour. For sure we will be there next year to cover this great event! 

about Harriet: Harriet is a retired school teacher from Texas with a passion for photography. You will find more of Harriet's work on pbase.

Citifari always responded to me. We established real and nice communication…  Always helpful and responsive…  I bought a first tour on the Internet after I went, I bought them all. Their Night photo tour was my first experience of citifari. I had never photographed at night and I didn’t have tripod. Luckily, Citifari had some for me… I shoot with a Canon 550D and with the Sigma 17-50mm f/2.8 and Sigma 50-150mm f2.8 lenses.
I went to the night tour with a sweet team of other photographers.  I didn’t think about learning new skills. I just always thought “taking photos equals taking photos”. My plan was to see new places and visit… But, now I have added and learnt new techniques about taking photos and how to use my camera better…  Citifari is valuable and very reliable… Thank you very much…

When I came back, GFK, the leading market research agency in Turkey announced a photo contest about “Change” on social networks. I sent an email with two of my pictures. They selected the one I took with Citifari to be published on their calendar 2013. This calendar and my picture will be at millions of GFK’s customers in Turkey, this is really a big deal.

I plan to do more of these photo visits. New places, new trips, new experience… Now I realize that taking pictures means continual personal improvement, I feel strong about an exhibition in Istanbul…
Armagan Portakal

Please join citifari, Snap Your FNO and the other sponsors to congratulate the three winners of the photo contest.

#1,  Igee Okafor. The 18-year old Nigerian-born Igee is the big winner of the Snap Your FNO contest. The oldest of 4, growing up, Igee has been exposed to many fields of art and has developed many passions. Igee loves fashion and clothes and enjoys photography, modeling, singing, dancing and musical theatre. You can see his pictures and other fun stuff at http://igwedinmaimezieuzo.tumblr.com/. Igee enjoys putting outfits together and experimenting. His personal style is really versatile, mostly Brad Goreski inspired. "Life is all about passions and that's the beauty of it, there are plenty of things to be passionate about!". Igee leaves with a large Col Cashmere ($179 retail value), a citifari NYC Landmarks photo tours for four people ($200) and a pair of Cano Longo ($99) footwear by Marlandia.

#2, Kearah Armonie, from Brooklyn, is an aspiring writer, visionary director, and wardrobe stylist. She is currently working on her first film entitled Don't believe the hype: the story of the modern day Bohemian. The film is a documentary that will showcase the lives of young artists and challenge certain stereotypes we face. You can learn more about Kearah on her blog: kearmonie.blogspot.com/. Kearah wins a Col Cashmere, a citifari NYC Landmarks photo tours for two and a pair of Exclusive Eco Collection footwear by Marlandia.

#3, Liva Judic, now London based, from Paris via Madagascar and many other places, is a modern day nomad running a communications agency called Merrybubbles out of London.  Liva loves to take photos of people, places and objects with character. You can join her Merrybubbles conversation on Twitter, check Liva's Overblog social hub and read her daily newspaper in the main European languages, The Merrybubbles Daily. Liva wins a Col Cashmere, a citifari NYC Landmarks photo tour and a pair of Crusada footwear by Marlandia.

We would like to thank all the participants who sent us their pictures, the finalists who were selected in the Top 12 and the judges whose work made all this competition feasible.

About the sponsors:
citifari (www.citifari.com) offers photo tours in New York City. Its professional photographers and guides have diligently scouted the most unique vantage points for many of the city's famous. During the citifari walking tour, they share with you these privileged corners of NYC along with various, must-have, techniques so you can shoot your own stunning photographs.

LeColCashmere’s (www.lecolcashmere.com) is the vanguard purveyor of urban cashmere accessories. Its signature cashmere tube scarf was initially produced in 2009 and very quickly met with incredible success. Designed with a Parisian mindset and inspired by New York's fashion edge, Le Col is the latest trend in luxurious cashmere for the Fall and Winter seasons.

Marlandia (www.marlandiashop.com) empowers women in Rio de Janeiro's favelas as the exclusive U.S. ambassador and distributor for Retalhos Cariocas, a progressive Brazilian fashion house that trains women in the favelas to transform flip-flops, bags, and apparel with eco-fabrics into gladiators, booties, wrap shoes and more. With Marlandia's support, Retalhos Cariocas has gained worldwide acclaim for transforming waste into fashion in every sense.

The details about the competition, the finalists and the public's vote can be found on Snap Your FNO's facebook page at www.facebook.com/snapyourfno

The announcement and the live twitter feed with links to all the photos can be found here at www.citifari.com/snapyourfno

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Thanks Terry for sending us an awesome review and the link to some of the pictures you took during your tours. We love to hear what you think and how to improve our tours.

I have lived and worked around the City for over 15 years, I now live in Atlanta, Ga but travel here for business a lot. Just bought a Canon T3 and a couple of lenses (10-22, 70-300, etc.) and I am reading and experimenting every chance I get to learn photography more. While here I thought I would do one of the cheesy double decker bus tours since the last time I did one was in the late 90's to at least be able to capture some of the more decent shots. I wasn’t excited about having to sit in traffic or shooting from the moving bus. On a chance I googled photography tours and Citifari popped up. I did the afternoon landmark tour and the night tour and it far exceeded what I was hoping for. The sites were great but for an old New Yorker that had seen all of them many times the specific selections that were chosen to demonstrate a new composition, exposure or technique were awesome. Every portrait I will take going forward I will think about the Library Lion. What a great way to associate very technical settings with a memorable experience. The added benefit is the random discussions with a real photographer as you walked from site to site. Louis is young, laid back and very easy to discuss topics with, unlike many of the pretentious photographers that you meet out there. I only wish I had found it earlier in the week I would have taken the Central Park tour as well.

Here is a link to my pictures: http://on.fb.me/KFuNqF

Thanks Terry! If you too you have something to say about your experience with citifari, do not hesitate to send it to us or to write a review on the many sites where we are already featured:

• on google,
• on tripadvisor, or
• on Yelp!

We look forward to hearing back from you soon.

To which city are you traveling next? Chances are metromarks (www.metromarks.com) has you covered. 

With metromarks app, you can find a city’s weather, local news, movie times, events, blogs, maps of every kind, attractions, restaurants, hotels and shopping deals in seconds - without even touching your keyboard! Yes this is the promise for a great app.

Why are we saying that? This week, metromarks selected citifari as their photo tours providers in New York City. And as a result, citifari is featured in the New York attractions together with TimeOut and tripadvisor.

Check metromarks's app, available on iphone or android, and tell us what you think!

We are happy to announce the launch of our latest tour, the New York by Night photo tour.
This addition to the citifari family of tours starts close to the UN Headquarters, goes through 42nd street, including the Chrysler Building and Grand Central and then heads towards Rockefeller Center and Radio City Music Hall. We also review techniques such as zooming, light painting and of course long exposures.

You can read more about this tour on our website: http://www.citifari.com/nightphototour.htm.

Note that a tripod (available for hire) is required for this tour.

-- the citifari team