NY Through the Lens - New York City Photography

I need help with this contest!

All you have to do is Go here and click COLLECT ME

It’s for a photography contest which includes a chance of winning $10,000 and a showing in Times Square. You are all invited if (by a super long shot) I win! :)

Thank you in advance! ♥ View my photography for sale here.

St. Mark’s Place party balloons. East Village, New York City.

Before I run off to do birthday things, since today is my birthday (yes!), I wanted to share this lovely festive photo of balloons blowing in the wind on St. Mark’s Place in the East Village along with some information about how to find me on Google Currents.

It turns out that I am now a curator on Google Currents and this means that you can now view my photos and posts on your Android, iPhone and iPad. I really love the layout and how feeds look on Google Currents. I hope you do too. You can find me there by clicking here:

Vivienne Gucwa’s New York City photography on Google Currents

I have been having a really wonderful birthday week. I will post more about the new lens I received as an early birthday gift on Monday in another post. Suffice to say that I am having a blast and there are cupcakes on my current agenda. How can you go wrong with that?!

—-

View this photo larger and on black on my Google Plus page

—-

Buy “Balloons - East Village - New York City” Posters and Prints here, View my store, email me, or ask for help.

Night. East Village, New York City.

As the city moves furtively into shadows, buildings render themselves one by one in the cold glow of street lamps whose light burns brightly against the dark expanse of night: supernovas pushing against gravity and their inevitable collapse into themselves.

And we wait: unaware of the solemnity of the situation.

We wait under these man-made white dwarfs pushing our dreams to the skies beyond our grasps forever propelling ourselves forward while standing completely still.

—-

View this photo larger and on black on my Google Plus page

—-

Buy “Gravitational collapse - Night - East Village - New York City” Posters and Prints here, View my store, email me, or ask for help.

Angel of the Waters - Bethesda Fountain. Winter. Central Park, New York City.

The silence that engulfs the world after a snowfall is deafening. All heartbeats, all footsteps, all meandering thoughts and evocations are wrapped in a heavy blanket of snow. Trees cease reaching for the sky, weighed down by the weight of the sky’s tears of joy and there is scarcely a breath to be heard.

Winter muffles the earth silencing it’s yearnings and all at once there is peace.

—-

I have postulated before that this may be one of the most serene areas of Central Park during and after a heavy snow. The definitive crown jewel of Central Park, the neoclassical Angel of the Waters is one of the most famous and universally loved fountains in the world. Also known as Bethesda Fountain, the winged female figure celebrates the purifying of the city’s water supply when the Croton Aqueduct opened in 1842 bringing fresh water to all New Yorkers. She holds a lily, the symbol of purity in one hand while her other hand extends outward as she blesses the water below. Beneath the eight-foot gilded bronze angel are four smaller figures that symbolize Temperance, Purity, Health, and Peace.

One of the things that spurred me on to create my Holiday Gift Idea Guide and my initial New York City Holiday Card designs were repeated requests for photos of this fountain in the snow. It’s unusual to see this fountain not surrounded by people. More unusual still is viewing it covered in a blanket of snow. I think this is when the fountain is at its most peaceful. There is an overwhelming sense of serenity that seems to permeate this area of Central Park during this sort of unique moment in time.

—-

View this photo larger and on black on my Google Plus page

—-

Buy “The Sky’s Tears of Joy - Angel of the Waters - Winter - Central Park” Posters and Prints here, View my store, email me, or ask for help.

Central Park Poet’s Walk in the winter. New York City.

In preparing my photos for the various New York City holiday cards that I designed this year, I finally went through the massive amounts of photos that I took in Central Park this past winter. New York City can be rather extreme in the winter months and last winter two different blizzards dropped a tremendous amount of snow on the city.

I love heavy snowfall and I found myself braving the super high wind gusts to wander around a mostly empty Central park during one of the two blizzards. I don’t really recommend it and thinking back, it was a bit risky considering that the wind gusts were around 55 mph and higher. Wind gusts and trees don’t make for the safest of combinations. However, I have never seen Central Park in such a serene state.

The only people who were in the park that day were small amounts of people who lived in the surrounding neighborhoods, brave tourists and intrepid photographers with giddy expressions on their faces. I could probably count on both hands the number of people I encountered and I ended up covering most of the park on foot that day (I was never so happy to get home and drink hot chocolate that evening).

This part of Central Park is known as The Poet’s Walk or Literary Walk. The reason why this part of the park is known as Poet’s Walk and/or Literary Walk is because at the very end of this section, several statues of famous writers line the path. It’s at the southern end of a section called The Mall.

It’s the only straight line in Central Park and the trees that line it are its crowning and most distinctive feature. They are American elm trees and are the largest and last remaining stands in all of North America. Over the years, other large grouping of American Elm trees have been destroyed by Dutch Elm disease but Central Park’s conservancy has saved a majority of the remaining trees in the park despite losing around 40 trees in the last few years to this contagious fungus.

The Poet’s Walk is one of my favorite spots in the autumn and winter because the trees look their most graceful and beautiful during these seasons. The leaves turn a beautiful golden yellow in the autumn and the elegant branches seem to reach out to each other when covered by freshly fallen snow in the winter.

—-

View this photo larger and on black on my Google Plus page

—-

Buy “Serenity - Central Park Winter - Poet’s Walk - New York City” Posters and Prints here, View my store, email me, or ask for help.

Autumn leaves. Central Park, New York City.

Under a canopy of elm trees, nothing is quite as beautiful as the warmth that emanates from fallen autumn leaves.

Scattered like fiery embers, they are strewn about only suspended in motion for a short time before the wind stirs them from their molten slumber.

If winter had but one dream, it would be of this.

—-

View this photo larger and on black on my Google Plus page

—-

Buy “Winter’s Dream - Autumn - Central Park - New York City” Posters and Prints here, View my store, email me, or ask for help.

East Village street at night. New York City.

At night when the city pauses, street lights flicker; electrical synapses trigger dream sputters and whirring blinks of sleepy eyes open and shut in the darkness.

Traversing this elaborate noir dreamscape, reverie-wayfarers pause; stop-motion refugees lit only by the cool blinks of neon signs. In these solitary single frames, night’s blackness vignettes these stolen illuminated interludes cradling them in its steady embrace.

—-

View this photo larger and on black on my Google Plus page

—-

Buy “Reverie-wayfarers - East Village - New York City” Posters and Prints here, View my store, email me, or ask for help.

Autumn light through trees. Central Park, New York City.

It’s in the way the sunlight streams through the last vestiges of autumn: as golden as the leaves that hold onto their branches.

It’s in the way the earth bares itself under this fanfare: as vulnerable as new lover’s heartbeats buried under layers of clothing.

Winter’s prelude starts slowly: a distant refrain that works its way through the earth chilled in anticipation.

We slow-dance on this mortal coil to the adagio of life twisting and turning with the whims of the winds that scatter our spirit to the ends of the earth.

It’s all we can do.

—-

View this photo larger and on black on my Google Plus page

—-

Buy “Adagio - Light Through Autumn Trees - Central Park” Posters and Prints here, View my store, email me, or ask for help.

Freeman Alley on a bitterly cold night. Lower East Side, New York City.

The winter gives New York City a more clearly defined edge. It’s an edge that can be found off the beaten path during nights when the windchill dips into the negative. The lights flicker like icy cold stars leading the way down alleys and streets not well traversed late at night.

Monotonous rushes of wind rhythmically pulse through these stark pathways lined by the frozen tears of winter that cling desperately to the ground and in the distance the warm glow of a distant sun penetrates winter’s frigid grasp.

—-

View this photo larger and on black on my Google Plus page

—-

Buy “Warm Glow of the Sun on a Winter City Night” Posters and Prints here, View my store, email me, or ask for help.

Soho cobblestone street at night. New York City.

There is a certain serenity that can found when wandering New York City streets at night. These moments pause the forward motion and flow of city life. Street lights flicker against wet cobblestone and glass windows stare back languidly. Remnants of previous signs of life sit on curbs while bicycles lean against stoops resting briefly in the calm embrace of the night.

Someone suggested a few months ago that a common theme to my photography was loneliness. I recounted to him how in the earlier days of my website, people would message me asking if I deliberately removed people from my shots. They couldn’t believe that in a city as densely populated as New York City, moments like the ones I am fond of capturing exist in reality. I can definitely say that I have never removed anyone from my shots.

The truth is that even in a city of a little over 8 million people, the city often pauses and takes a breath. The in-between moments where life empties from the streets, when the city becomes a private sanctuary are captivating.

These moments are fleeting and short-lived but they breathe life into the same streets that boast activity in the moments that tend to define them.

—-

View this photo larger and on black on my Google Plus page

—-

Buy “In-Between Moments - Soho - New York City” Posters and Prints here, View my store, email me, or ask for help.

Autumn landscape. Central Park, New York City.

Autumn in New York City is absolutely intoxicating.

That intoxication reaches a frenzied peak in Central Park. There is a two week period of time every year when the trees display foliage so brilliant that it’s impossible not to feel a rush of giddy excitement on first view.

The sky melds with water reflecting stained glass colored foliage and smile-bearing wanderers pause to take in the awe and splendor of nature in the cathedral of leaves.

—-

View this photo larger and on black on my Google Plus page

—-

Buy “Cathedral of Leaves - Central Park- New York City” Posters and Prints here, View my store, email me, or ask for help.

St. Mark’s Place brownstone covered in lush ivy. East Village, New York City.

Before the leaves begin their gravity-fettered migration to the ground, the sun engages in one last embrace with the foliage ensconced shadows.

In these sun-soaked shadows, the leaves shiver while dreaming of winter’s frigid kiss waltzing slowly with the ominous brisk breeze before they are swept off their branches like young lovers swept off their feet by the newness of each other.

—-

View this photo larger and on black on my Google Plus page

—-

Buy “Ensconced - East Village - New York City” Posters and Prints here, View my store, email me, or ask for help.