NY Through the Lens - New York City Photography

Bushwick. Street art. Brooklyn. New York City.

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The sky wavered in mood earlier today displaying an angsty mix of rage-puffed storm clouds and baby blues streaked by sunlight. It was the perfect backdrop for Bushwick’s incredible array of street art murals that pepper the industrial urban landscape.

I have been spending an inordinate amount of time in Brooklyn lately. My other half was born in Brooklyn (I like to refer to it as his “hatch-zone”) and is a great walking-off-steam companion. And so we keep ending up in interesting places on these long walks.

Bushwick was never really a friendly place when I was younger (this is a severe understatement). It’s fascinating to see the stage of evolution it seems to be in currently. The factories are all still there but there is also an amazing amount of art that seems to be thriving on the walls of Bushwick. Growing up in Queens ogling 5 Pointz, a large industrial space transformed into a premiere space for graffiti/street artists to cover in art, I was sad to hear that 5 Pointz will eventually be razed. However, Bushwick seems to have a blossoming 5 Pointz feel at this moment in time which is exhilarating to witness.

Who knows what the future holds for Bushwick? But, for now, it’s a perfect mix of grit and art.

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Williamsburg Bridge and the skylines of Manhattan and Brooklyn at sunset.

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Moments are vessels that contain: sparks, magic, effervescent happiness, lingering sadness, red-tinged anger, bittersweet joy all waiting to explode if and when that point in time is visited again.

There are moments that exist somewhere between the excited beat of the heart and a welled-up tear in the eye. They are the chills that run up the back of the neck and the small smile that can’t be contained when their memory is nudged by a sound, sight, scent, touch.

It’s the way the light was shining through the bridge as the boat pulled away under a sky blue with hope as the sun set and the lump in the throat subsided momentarily. It’s the way the water looked as it rocked the boat gently like a lullaby as it drifted away from the sunlight that poured its light onto the surface of the water.

And it’s the way everything seemed pointless in comparison to the way the clouds gathered over the city: hopeful tufts of smoke emanating from the sun’s extinguishing fire…

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This is a view of the Williamsburg Bridge and the Lower East Side as seen from a boat on the East River during sunset with the Sony A77. In the distance sits the skyline of Brooklyn in Dumbo and the Manhattan Bridge.

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Cherry blossoms. New York - Spring. Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.

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Unexpected magic is some of the best kind of magic especially when it is found in the most unlikely of places.

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Spent an afternoon yesterday walking around Bay Ridge, Brooklyn while the temperatures dipped lower and lower (it’s been a brisk springtime here in New York City). And as the sun crept closer to the horizon, I came across a tiny opening near an overpass, next to a parkway where this gorgeous, fairy tale scene appeared just around the bend.

Sometimes there is nothing than better…

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Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Hewes Street.

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With layers of dirt and paint under our nails from constantly peeling back the layers of this city, it’s not the stars we seek.

It’s the light that seeps through…

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New York City Skyline and the Brooklyn Bridge. Night lights bokeh.

If you stop to squint long enough

all the dreams whispered on the wind during the day

flicker like fireflies when the evening

stretches out across the sky

and the rain washes the city’s despair away

so it can dream itself into another sunrise.

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This was taken on earlier this evening with the Sony A99 overlooking the New York City skyline and the Brooklyn Bridge in Brooklyn. I was taking long exposures earlier this evening and as the sky filled with enormous clouds shortly after sunset as the city’s lights sprinkled themselves like glitter all over the evening cityscape and it was as if everything else melted away.

These are the moments I want to bottle up and save for later. And that’s why I absolutely love photography.

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New York City Skyline and the roof tops of Brooklyn Heights at sunset overlooking the Brooklyn Bridge.

Summer evenings in New York City weave their own spell when summer night skies slide onto the city through the sticky-sweet haze.

The skyscrapers cling to the sunlight wrapped up in the glow and hazy anticipation of just one more kiss of light.

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This was taken at the peak of last summer from a roof top in Brooklyn overlooking the skyline of Brooklyn Heights, the Brooklyn Bridge and a very hazy lower Manhattan skyline. I was shooting with a camera I wasn’t at all used to shooting with and the temperature was hovering near 80 degrees at night with nearly 100% humidity. The air was thick as molasses and the heat was unrelenting but it was an absolutely gorgeous summer sunset.

It’s usually this point of the winter when I start pining for summer evenings like this forgetting that on summer evenings like this, I am usually pining for winter :).

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Williamsburg Bridge - New York City

Walked over the Williamsburg Bridge today to get to Brooklyn because
the bus lines were several blocks long. I tried to calculate the
distance i have walked over the last 3 days and i think it’s close to
14 miles (and counting). Feels good to walk and get out of a very,
very cold apartment (looking for the positives :)).

Sitting in an apartment that has power and heat which is a nice
change. Just heard that it may not be until Saturday that power is
restored to my part of the Lower East Side. Sigh. Better than another
week though?

Thanks again for all the kind messages and comments everyone.

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View the rest of the posts about Hurricane Sandy in NYC on this blog here:

Hurricane Sandy New York City

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The New York City skyline. Brooklyn Bridge Park.

The soft light of the sun rises slowly kissing the horizon before ascending into the sky.

And the city, awash in the sleepy glow of night’s embrace, glistens in the bleary-eyed blink of dawn’s eye.

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This photo was taken with my phone and edited with Camera +. I am @newyorklens on Instagram (view my feed here). Check out my other phone photography posts made to this blog, and my mobile photography photos on Flickr.

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Sunset on the beach at Coney Island. Brooklyn, New York City.

While the last of summer’s sun pours itself onto the earth touching the ocean with its warmth, autumn waits with baited breath lingering above in the blue of the sky.

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This photo was taken with my phone and edited with Camera +. I am @newyorklens on Instagram (view my feed here). Check out my other phone photography posts made to this blog here. You can check out all of my mobile photography photos on Flickr here. Additionally, you can view my phone photography for sale here.

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Coney Island beach at sunset. Brooklyn, New York City.

The sun whispers to the ocean in golden-voiced tones on evenings like these.

Summer’s warmth falls onto the bare skin of the earth as the air is punctuated by the sounds of distant laughter and birds.

And the city fades into the haze like a nostalgic thought carried away by an all too familiar melody.

I had a bit of a camera tragedy a few weeks back. My beloved Sony SLT-A55 stopped working. It’s currently being looked at by Sony and I have had the pleasure of using a Sony SLT-A77 (the image in this post was taken with it) as a loaner camera until the end of the month which has been nothing short of magical. I plan on doing a write-up later this week regarding how the Sony SLT- A55 compares to the Sony SLT- A77.

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Sun through weeping cherry blossom trees. Brooklyn, New York City.

Through the sky’s shadowed embrace, the sun pulls back the curtain of night.

And the earth basking in night’s afterglow stirs slowly under the sun’s radiance as each tree awakens to the promise a new day.

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Sunny’s Bar on Conover Street. Red Hook, Brooklyn. New York City.

There are streets and places that feel as if they have been taken out another time. They seem to exist independently of the world around them as fragments of history that have somehow made it into the present.

Sunny’s is a 120 year old saloon that is located in Red Hook, Brooklyn, a neighborhood of New York City that has quite a colorful history. The bar is named after Antonio “Sunny” Balzano who was born in 1934 in the deep red brick apartment right next to the bar. Growing up near the waterfront in Red Hook in the 1940s, he would play alongside ship cargo and after surviving violent street brawls in the 1950s and the crime of the 1980s, he became the owner of the bar that neighbored the apartment where his life unfolded through the years.

The bar was originally run by Sunny’s uncle where it revolved around the shipping industry. Longshoremen were the main clientele back then. When Sunny moved back home in the 1980s to take over the operations at the bar, the neighborhood was a shell of what it used to be. The shipping industry had moved its operations across the harbor to New Jersey and for quite a few years the streets remained quiet and Sunny operated the bar just to keep it open for a few neighborhood regulars.

Red Hook has since changed as it has been embraced by both developers, the arts community and families looking to settle down in a quiet part of Brooklyn. Sunny’s still exists though, a testament to Red Hook’s colorful history.

- History pieced together from “Sunny’s Wonderful Saloon” New York Times By Wendell Jameison, October 2002

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Cherry blossom trees in full bloom. Brooklyn, New York City.

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When no one is looking, the trees dance.

With their limbs outstretched and their blossoms blush-pink and white in the heat of the sun’s glow, they whirl gracefully with each and every pirouette.

And the wind hold their limbs close to its heart twirling them around whispering utterances of love on every warm breeze.

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Weeping cherry blossoms illuminated by the sun. Brooklyn, New York City.

There are days when blossoms catch glints of sunlight on their petals that sway slowly in warm breezes.

On these days, it is as if the sun has exploded in the sky raining its light down to the earth below.

And the trees hold their branches out like eager tongues waiting to catch the first snowflakes of winter.

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Purple door on a Brooklyn brownstone. Cobble Hill, Brooklyn. New York City.

I came across this beautiful purple door recently while walking around Cobble Hill, Brooklyn. I have discussed my extreme brownstone envy in previous posts here. But this entrance took that heart skipping envy to a whole new level. As if brownstones in Brooklyn couldn’t get any more charming!

This photo was taken with my phone. I am @newyorklens on Instagram (view my feed here). Check out my other Instagram posts made to this blog here. You can check out all of my Instagram photos on Flickr here. Additionally, you can view my phone photography for sale here.

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