NY Through the Lens - New York City Photography

New York rain. Romance on Doyers Street. Chinatown.

Stolen moments are the sweetest moments.

When the rest of the city has escaped for the day, the world melts away with a lingering kiss under an umbrella.

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It’s really no secret that Doyers Street is one of my favorite streets in lower Manhattan. It’s an alley (or very narrow street) that is usually photographed from an entirely different angle. In fact, the fact that it has a sharp angle in it goes along with its colorful history. Its angle was known as “the Bloody Angle” for part of the 20th century due to gang violence.

This is just around the bend from the more popular part of the angle and also across from one of my favorite noodle shops in Chinatown. I love moments like this that are so completely candid but somehow feel cinematic. I had just walked out from the above-mentioned noodle shop when I was met with this scene. It was too perfect to not quickly capture, of course.

To all who celebrate Valentine’s Day and to all who do not celebrate - I wish you romantic moments like this one. ♥

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Taken with the Sony A55.

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Storm clouds and tenements. Chinatown, New York City.

As storm clouds approach, the sun washes over the city showering its splendor onto the urban landscape like a brilliant star projecting its last bits of light into the vast universe.

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I love the light on the buildings in this section of Chinatown before a storm. This particular view overlooks the tenements that face the Forsyth Market under the Manhattan Bridge where produce and other food is sold daily in a sprawling open air market.

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Rain. Greenwich Village, New York City.

Rain is the sky’s love song to the city.

The sky opens up revealing an other-worldly light that cloaks the city in effervescent splendor.

Sidewalks and streets, slick with promise, mirror the movement of urban explorers navigating the sleek concrete as taxi lights shine their refracted, blurred lights into the vast expanse of the rain-soaked landscape.

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Sharing this photo today since I talked about it (briefly) and a few other photos of mine on Trey Ratcliff’s Stuck in Customs Show last night. Trey was traveling and I was asked last minute if I would be on the show with a few other street photographers to discuss some of our work. It was a great time! The other photographers on the show were Eric Kim and Rinzi Ruiz and it was hosted by Karen Hutton and Dave Veffer. I am already a huge fan of Eric’s street photography but I wasn’t familiar with Rinzi’s work and it completely blew me away.

While the majority of my work tends to focus on New York City’s landscapes and architecture and is devoid of people, it was nice to discuss a few of my photos that do have people in them and talk a little bit about my philosophy on shooting people in the city and the narratives I tend to gravitate towards when dealing with people shots.

It’s always interesting to see how certain themes emerge with any art form and I seem to have a fondness for street photography in the rain. I blame New York City for that fondness. It’s just so incredibly moody and beautiful when it rains here :).

You can view the show from last night here: Trey’s Variety Hour #53: Street Photography

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Rain. Pell Street. Chinatown, New York City.

In-between light creates all its own stories. It’s the light after a long night when the city sleepily shakes off the blanket of darkness and stretches in the first few rays of the waking sun and it’s also the light after a long day when the city unwinds basking in the low light of dusk.

In-between light caught in the steady drizzle of rain is even more enchanting. Tears of laughter, heartache, sorrow and joy fall on the city streets silencing their hungry rumble. Buildings darken one by one as the city blurs softly preparing for its nightly refractory period.

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Looking out over the skyscrapers of New York City skyline in Midtown.

Driven by an imagination stirred by visions Batman flying through Gotham, I used to have vivid dreams when I was younger of flying through the skyscrapers that are part of the midtown Manhattan skyline.

This cluster of skyscrapers is one of my favorites. These buildings seem to huddle together in a solemn solidarity: titans comprised of multitudes of urban aspirations.

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Night. Central Park, New York City.

Over glistening cobblestones in the haze of summer heat, the twinkling lights of oncoming cars cast their glow like fireflies in a dense urban forest.

As somnambulists glide over uneven paths, the wind plays a nocturne.

This is when the city dreams.

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Washington Square Park fountain at night in the summer. New York City.

The inherent romance that pulses through the city at night grows stronger in the summer.

Lamp posts and surfaces weary from the noonday sun glisten in the moonlight while night breezes carry the whispers of lovers along slowly and deliberately.

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The W.R. Grace Building and the Chrysler Building. 42nd Street. Midtown, New York City.

There are certain views in the city that seem to have embedded themselves in my mind over time.

This view, is one of those types of views. When I think of some of the first times I noticed the Chrysler Building when I was much younger, this is the view that immediately springs out of the recesses of my memory. I can’t quite remember the first time I took in this view but I also can’t remember viewing the Chrysler Building from any other vantage point when I think back on my first impressionable views of the iconic art deco masterpiece of architecture.

It’s as if this portion of the city didn’t exist until I saw it in this exact way as if once I laid eyes on this scene, my mind dream-sketched it into existence.

Perhaps that’s how we all form our own significant impressions of our surroundings. The memorable bits inhabit a place in our minds where they can spring forth when thinking of a certain place: a treasure chest of imagery that sits in our minds waiting for us to open it with our eyes.

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This particular view is adjacent to Bryant Park on 42nd Street. The sloped building in the foreground is the W.R. Grace Building which was designed by Gordon Bunshaft and completed in 1974. When I was little I used to imagine how awesome it would be to slide down the facade of the building. It turns out, I wasn’t the only one who imagined such a thing. In 2007, the Grace Building was featured in the 2007 Marvel Comics motion picture Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. The Silver Surfer, pursued by the Human Torch, surfs down the south face of The Grace Building, imploding windows in his cosmic-energy wake.

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Train station in black and white. York Street Station. Dumbo. Brooklyn, New York City.

We wait.

We wait for the city to move beneath our feet.

We wait for the universe to rise up from under the weight of our own gravitas; the movement of our world spinning on its axis.

And while we wait, the plaster crumbles, the paint peels, the train tracks rust; all suspended in their own decay like flies in amber.

We wait because it’s the only way to slow down as time pushes us forward further and further into the vast expanse of eternity.

We wait for the train to come.

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Love Me. Hudson River Park Pier view of the New York City skline. West Village.

Under cover of darkness, the city lights flicker: stars and skyscraper constellations in a vast urban universe.

And when the night squints, small evocations come into focus: plaintive pleas and heart fluttering statements released into the city’s collective mind.

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Pell Street, Chinatown in the rain. New York City.

Under the weight of the sky’s tears streets glisten reflecting the gleam in the eye of the clouds overhead. The day washes away slowly: its sorrows and joys melt into puddles under-foot.

It’s on these sorts of evenings that all of the cares in the world pale in comparison to the momentary haze that engulfs the city: a sultry, sorrowful, sedate embrace.

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Central Park East at night. Upper East Side, New York City.

Over the glistening cobblestones in the haze of the late summer heat, the twinkling lights of oncoming cars cast their glow like fireflies in a dense urban forest.

Somnambulists glide over uneven paths as the wind plays a nocturne: its vibrato pulsates rhythmically with each and every breeze.

This is when the city dreams.

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