NY Through the Lens - New York City Photography

Autumn light. Central Park, New York City

On this day last year, someone who I was close with in my early 20s died and I am still trying to make sense of such a tragic loss. I don’t think I ever will. I made a a lengthy post about Jen and my memories of her (with videos of her amazing performances) here last year:

Jeniviva

A few days later, I wrote this poem and posted it with this photo I am posting right now. It was raw and it’s the only thing I can think of posting today that sums up what I am (still) feeling:

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Rain. New York City. Greenwich Village.

When the sky opens up over the city, urban wanderers glide over the surface of streets slick with shadowy memory.

And every drop of rain holds the world in its slippery grasp.

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Recently, someone who saw this same photo in black and white inquired if I also had the image available in color. Since I shoot in color and convert my color photos to black and white after the fact (with a few exceptions), I went through my library and found my color rendition of this scene. I was struck with how the photo evoked a different set of emotions when viewing it in color. I have come to love it in black and white to such an extent that my memory of the scene as it occurred also plays out in my mind in black and white. However, I remember the initial appeal of this candid moment was the strong bursts of color against the winter-bare trees. The day was bitterly cold: the type of damp cold that seeps down to the bone and in one short moment, the street erupted with color. It was such a fleeting moment but it created such a spark.

On a related note, I read an interesting essay by Joel Meyerwitz a few days ago on the New York Times Lens Blog called A Question of Colors - Answered. Meyerwitz is part of a current exhibition in London which compares some of Henri Cartier-Bresson’s black and white images with work by other noted photographers who have been influenced by him but have chosen to work in color for a large part of their photography careers. The curator of this particular exhibition states that: “This exhibition will show how Henri Cartier-Bresson, in spite of his skeptical attitude regarding the artistic value of colour photography, nevertheless exerted a powerful influence over photographers who took up the new medium and who were determined to put a personal stamp on it. In effect, his criticisms of colour spurred on a new generation, determined to overcome the obstacles and prove him wrong.”

It’s interesting to me that color photography inhabits a more defensive realm than black and white photography especially when it comes to street photography. I think that both have different psychological effects on the viewer and both can be just as valid in terms of having artistic value. However, it’s definitely not a simple debate.

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Hurricane Sandy debris on Delancey Street on Monday morning. Lower East Side, New York City.

Tons of debris seen earlier this morning looking down Delancey Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The wind was pretty harsh at that time and it’s even more brutal now. A huge wind gust just literally shook my entire apartment (I live on the 5th floor of a very, very old walk-up).

Just got a robo-call from Con Ed saying that power may be shut off here on the Lower East Side. If I don’t update again for a while, that’s why. Stay safe all!

In case you missed my earlier post, you can catch me on my Twitter mainly (unless the power goes totally out everywhere) until the middle of this week unless I have to go out for some completely insane reason.

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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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New York City Skyscrapers. Midtown.

They rise: stalagmites borne from an earth bursting at the seams with lofty aspirations.

And the city’s streets weave their way through them: well-worn crevices on the surface of dreams.

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This is one of my favorite views of the skyscrapers of midtown Manhattan. It’s a view from the top of the Empire State Building. I have always loved the variety of architecture and intensely dense feel of this patch of the New York City skyline.

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Autumn leaves under elm trees. 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.

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A few people commented elsewhere that they missed both parts of the documentary series that I posted earlier this week. It was part of a docu-series filmed this past summer about my photography. So, if you missed it and are curious about my early influences and thoughts about New York City, here are both segments:

Art Seen: Vivienne Gucwa

Art Seen: Vivienne Gucwa, Part 2

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The New York City skyline at sunset.

At the end of this past summer, I rode the East River Ferry alone one day for four hours. I find it really relaxing to be near or on the water.The ferry has an all-day pass and at times it was only me on the deck watching the bridges and skyline fade in and out of view as the sun danced across the sky.

There is a moment at the beginning of sunset when the sun begins to drop from the sky when it almost appears as if it is trying to catch its reflection in the water mirror below. I wish I could have bottled this moment up to have forever because it was as if the entire city was wrapped up in an intensely intimate embrace with the sun.

Isn’t that what is so great about photography?

Moments can last a lifetime.

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Seen in this photo: The Manhattan Bridge is in the foreground and the Brooklyn Bridge is directly behind it. The skyscrapers of the Lower Manhattan skyline are off to the right including the Woolworth Building, New York by Gehry and One World Trade Center (formally known as the Freedom Tower). To the left sits the borough of Brooklyn and the neighborhood of Dumbo.

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Brooklyn Bridge - Under Future Skies. New York City

Old metropolises stood partially intact - lit with a colorful glow that emanated from crowded skies: remains from a future that soared past the earth.

The skies were dark with the exhaust of sky-borne vehicles and burned out stars: remains from a present littered behind the future.

And under the left-over sky-rubble, old architecture rose from the ground stubbornly: remains from a past left behind long ago.

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This is not a phone photo. This is an ongoing side project: surreal future-dystopian (and utopian) cityscapes incorporating iconic NYC architecture and landscapes: part of a larger and strange sort of New York fairy tale series that I am imagining that takes place in the future.

View the other work in this ongoing series here: New York Fairy Tale

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Winter in Tompkins Square Park. East Village, New York City.

The clouds squeeze the last bit of light from the sun onto the city below.

It falls over trees and buildings: liquid promise spreading onto a landscape de-saturated by winter’s icy breath.

In the wake of winter’s gasping utterances, the sun uncovers the world that hides behind boisterous trees in summer.

And a smile spreads across the city’s face for a moment: warm and golden hope spreading itself over the remains of the day.

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I have been going through older photos taken back when it snowed with great conviction two winters ago. This was taken in Tompkins Square Park in the East Village the morning after a blizzard.

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In case you missed it, I posted a video this past weekend of me talking about photography and New York City. If you ever wondered what it is like to see me talk about these sorts of things, you can view the video here:

Art:Seen: Vivienne Gucwa

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New York City

Growing up in Queens, a borough of New York City, I was surrounded by a general attitude of contempt and disgust regarding anything tourist related. My father who worked nights as a newspaper pressman in Manhattan hated going into Manhattan for anything other than work (his job was back-breaking) and my mother echoed the same jaded sentiment towards ‘touristy things’ in Manhattan as her other outer-borough friends. The ‘city’ (as many people still call it) was something to be proud to live in very close proximity to but anything too popular in the ‘city’ was the subject of eye-rolls.

I grew up mimicking this sentiment; a sort of ‘been there, done that’ mentality. We would only ever go to things like Times Square and the Empire State Building when relatives or friends visited and there was a silent stoicism related to showing ‘the sights’ to ‘out-of-towners’. I always found this amusing. These sights that were derided as nothing more than trite spectacles were the same sights that my parents deemed worthy to spend time taking people to when people came to visit us.

When I moved to Manhattan a decade ago, I carried this attitude with me. It wasn’t until I started taking photos that I fully opened my eyes (so to speak). Granted, I had always found beauty in the things many people passed over; architectural details on tops of buildings, the way that sunlight hit buildings at different times of the day. However, when I finally discarded the jadedness that permeated my early years I started realizing how utterly phenomenal and fascinating all those ‘touristy’ things are.

It may have taken me many years to fully grasp why people come from all over the world to gaze lovingly at sights and architectural marvels like the Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building but now that I know it’s hard not to gaze at these sights with anything but wonder. There is so much to be in awe of in this spectacular city.

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This is an early morning view from the top of the Empire State Building looking out over the huge variety of skyscrapers that populate the skyline of midtown Manhattan.

Central Park stretches out in the distance with the MetLife Building and Chrysler Building to the right in this image and Bryant Park and Rockefeller Center towards the left and center. The Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge (also known as the 59th Street Bridge) is to the right of the Chrysler Building in this view and Queens can be seen to the right of the bridge disappearing into the haze.

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Bow Bridge in autumn. Central Park, New York City.

The sun’s light dances on the tops of leaves blushing red in autumn’s embrace.

And the earth glows remembering summer’s long days and endless promises of warmth.

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This is one of the first round of photos I took back when I started to seriously take photos. I go back to this photo every year around this time and think a lot about that day, almost exactly two years ago to this date.

The air was bitingly crisp and the leaves had barely started to fall from the trees. I didn’t really know what I was trying to capture. In reality, I remember thinking that I would be happy if I could just get the colors of the leaves right with my humble camera (it was a point and shoot that barely had any controls), I would be over the moon.

This image has gone on quite a few journeys: as prints to many people (it still remains, to this day, one of my most popular), to clients for commercial work in ads, and on various websites.

I used to beat myself up about this photo since it feels like I have traveled a large distance in photography since I first took it and I can obviously see in my mind how the scene would look if I had taken the photo now.

I didn’t know it back then but what I have found to be most valuable element of photography is the ability to capture unique moments and distill their essence into something that resonates in some way with even as little as one person (which could just be yourself).

And you know what? I have gone back to this spot hundreds of times since then and I have never once seen it look exactly like this again.

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Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux designed Central Park in 1858. Bow Bridge, shaped like an archer’s bow, was built between 1859 and 1862. It spans more than 60 feet of the Lake. The ornamental iron railing incorporates elements of Gothic, Neo-Classical, and Renaissance design.

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Autumn in Central Park, New York City - on ABC News!

ABC News contacted me to ask if they could use one of my autumn photos in an autumn photo feature on the official ABC News website and I said yes. The feature just went up here:

When Autumn Comes To…

Pretty sweet! Super excited to share this (and re-post this photo in light of this news). It’s one of my favorite photos that I have ever taken here in Central Park in the autumn. I actually posted about it a week or so ago here:

Autumn Leaves - New York City

This all has me craving pumpkin pie or pumpkin spice hot chocolate! :)

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The New York City skyline and the Flatiron Building from above. Midtown.

From above, the Flatiron Building (in the middle of this photo) looks like a tiny little lego piece: one piece in a set of thousands that make up all the toy buildings in midtown Manhattan.

Still going through the hundreds of photos I took a few weeks back from the top of the Empire State Building. It was such a beautiful day and the sun created the most beautiful shadows that lined the streets below. Hopefully, in a few weeks I will start posting my regular photography from that day but for now here is a phone photo. :)

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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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Piles of autumn leaves under trees during autumn in Central Park, New York City.

All I can think about at this point is anything and everything that has to do with autumn: piles of leaves to jump in, hot apple cider with cinnamon sticks, pumpkin in just about everything, cute scarves and socks, ducking into cozy places to warm up briefly before heading back out to enjoy the kiss of brisk autumn breezes.

Summer, we can always fall in love again next year.

For now, I have a huge crush on autumn.

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