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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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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Washington Mews on a cloudy day. Greenwich Village, New York City.

There are streets that I revisit with regularity. These streets seem to call me back again and again. Tucked away and nearly hidden, they are treasure chests that open to reveal a wealth of warm, new feelings with every passing season. I used to come to this particular street quite a bit but it wasn’t until a year or so ago that I learned about its history.

The street sits on land that in the 18th century was part of a large farm that contained private stables used by the families of men such as nineteenth century architect Richard Morris Hunt, John Taylor Johnston who was the founding president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art , and Pierre Lorillard who was a prominent American tobacco manufacturer.

In the first half of the 20th century, a community of about 200 painters and sculptors flourished on this particular street and another adjoining street in the area. In 1903, a reporter for the New York Tribune wrote: “One finds a strange mixture of bales of hay and enormous blocks of marble, boxes of plaster and barrels of oats littering the roadways. Truckmen in greasy jumpers touch elbows now and then with the sculptors in their clay spattered working garb.”

One of the more prominent artists who had a studio on this beautiful street was Edward Hopper. Edward Hopper lived close to Washington Mews at 3 Washington Square starting in December 1913 until his death in 1967.

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Row boats and willow trees at The Lake in Central Park. New York City.

When the summer sun has drifted low into the sky after every bit of earth has been soaked in its warm splendor, the trees hang their heads down in mournful remembrance of winter’s impending icy touch.

And the willows play a slow and deliberate adagio to accompany the last of summer’s lovers on the sweetest sun-kissed wings of the wind.

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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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Cherry blossoms in the spring sunlight at Brooklyn Botanic Garden. New York City.

Staring into the light of the bright spring sun surrounded by flowering trees, petals swirl in the wind catching the light like glowing embers eventually scattering to the algae-colored pond below where they shimmer on the surface like tiny lanterns.

I was reminded of a comment that someone made about several of my recent spring photos where they were surprised to see nature represented in such a way in New York City because for them, New York City seemed to be nothing more than “a wilderness of rocks”. The truth is that there are so many places to find serenity and nature in New York City. There are over 1700 parks that span all five boroughs of New York City, many of which boast beautiful landscapes.

This particular image was taken yesterday at Brooklyn Botanic Garden in the Japanese Hill and Pond Garden, one of my favorite spots to enjoy the many colors and sights of spring. The Brooklyn Botanic garden has more than 200 cherry trees of forty-two Asian species, making it one of the foremost cherry-viewing sites outside of Japan. The first cherries were planted at the garden after World War I, a gift from the Japanese government.

The Japanese Hill and Pond Garden located in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden was the first Japanese garden to be created in an American public garden. It was constructed in 1914 and first opened to the public in June 1915. It is widely considered by numerous landscape architects, to be the masterpiece of its creator, Japanese landscape designer Takeo Shiota.

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If you didn’t see my initial contest entry post for the current Artists Wanted photography contest, you can still help me out by going to my contest entry page and clicking collect me

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Tree lined path in spring. Conservatory Garden. Central Park, New York City.

Weary after a long slumber, the urban forest primeval stirs.

Trees, in resplendent garments of ivy, stretch their graceful limbs towards each other as the dance of spring begins: a prelude to summer’s grand symphonic poem.

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This particular path in the Conservatory Garden located in Central Park is one of my favorite spot. It makes me feel as if I have escaped the city all while still feeling tied to it in an inexplicable yet endearing way. I fall in love with it a little bit more each time I come across it.

Last week, when I took this photo, it was no different. The trees which had been frozen in winter’s sleepy embrace were newly adorned with tiny spring blossoms and deep green ivy and it seemed as if all life in the city halted to watch them dance with their graceful limbs if only for a moment.

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Cherry blossoms hanging over a pond. Japanese Hill and Pond Garden. Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Brooklyn, New York City.

There are times when nature so perfectly replicates art that so perfectly replicated nature creating a philosophical conundrum for the ages. This was one of those moments.

Here is my little spring tribute to Claude Monet by way of some gorgeous cherry blossoms luxuriating in the sunlight over the Japenese Pond at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.

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Sun rays pouring over Bow Bridge in the late summer. Central Park, New York City.

There are moments that remain etched into time: moments that aren’t easily forgotten no matter how much time passes between the yawning gaps in between memory and dreaming.

The ability to capture uniquely experienced moments is at the core of photography. Cameras become jars with which to capture moments that flicker like fireflies.

Photographers are moment collectors and dream catchers.

Every collected moment and every captured dreamscape is the result of the tiny flicker that catches the photographer’s eye in such a profound way that it becomes an impossible feat to deny the urge to embrace the moment by capturing it in a photo.

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After my awesome interview last week for Photo Talk Plus (here: http://goo.gl/nrLj7 ), a few people messaged me privately about this photo since I talked about it on the show. Since it is an earlier photo of mine and it is positively gorgeous outside today in NYC, it felt like a good time to re-share it. Enjoy! :)

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