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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View “Bushwick Street Art - Brooklyn - New York City” in my photography portfolio here, email me, or ask for help.

Lower East Side at night. New York City.

At night, as the street lights guide urban wanderers home under a blanket of darkness,

the mist from the fog of millions of thoughts exhales at once into a sky heavy with dreams.

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This is a view looking down Rivington Street towards Suffolk Street on the Lower East Side in lower Manhattan. The building in the foreground with the colorful street art and graffiti is ABC No Rio, a center for art and activism that has been in this neighborhood since 1980.

This was taken with the Sony a99. It feels great to capture night scenes with this camera since it performs really well in low-light. During winter here in New York City, the nights seem endless so it’s nice to be able to capture what I experience and see on a daily basis after the sun goes down .

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The Weight of Air mural. By Faith47. East Village, New York City.

We melt under the heat of the sun exposing the frail and weathered sinews that bind us together,

leaving us to be picked apart by so many birds of prey.

Yet, as we implode - shattered by the forceful pull of dreams and memory - into a ball of melted wax,

it’s the weight of the air that keeps us whole.

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This amazing mural is the work of South African artist faith47. It’s called [the weight of air]. The words above are my own.

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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.

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Street art on a store gate. Lower East Side, New York City.

Store gates slumber in the folds of the day when the sun and clouds fall over the city like exhaled breath wrapping the cityscape in sleepy thoughts.

And on these slumbering store gates, dreamscapes unfold surrounded by the discarded remnants of every yesterday and every today.

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Buy “Every Yesterday - Lower East Side - New York City” Prints here, email me, or ask for help.

NYC eats its young. Chomp, chomp! Street art. East Village, New York City.

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This is my weekly mobile photography post. I hit my one month anniversary of when I first started using Instagram and dabbling in the world of mobile photography a week or so ago. I really never expected to have so much fun with mobile photography!

The community(ies) on Instagram is/are wonderful if you know where to look. I have found so many truly talented artists on there (lots of people involved in surrealism which has blown my mind) and it’s probably one of the most interactive and engaging photography hubs currently (aside from some of the other larger traditional social networks). If you stay away from the popular page (although there are some gems to be found there at times), and really explore, you can find real treasures there.

Prior to a month or so ago, I didn’t really understand mobile photography. I thought that people were just taking photos and applying the pre-made Instagram filters and that was that. However, I have learned that there are so many quality photo-editing mobile apps out there and an infinite amount of ways you can add your own style to mobile photography just like ‘regular’ photography. I have also noticed that there is a rather active and stunning world of street photography and documentary photography out there that I would have never come across had I not ventured into mobile photography. And it’s so much more than just Instagram. With other photo-sharing networks like EyeEm, StreamZoo and Facebook’s venture into its own camera app, the future seems bright for mobile photography.

I am @newyorklens on Instagram (view my feed here). You can check out some of my Instagram photos on Flickr here. Additionally, you can view my phone photography for sale here.

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Buy “NYC Eats Its Young - East Village - New York City” Prints here, My mobile photography for sale here, My regular photography for sale here, email me, or ask for help.

Street art mural. Soho, New York City.

Just a small announcement that you can purchase any of my mobile photography over at my New York City Photography Instaprints Store. Here it is:

New York City Photography on Instaprints

My regular photography store is still over on SmugMug where you can find my more formal photography:

New York City Photography Store

That is all! :)

I hope that everyone is having a splendid evening (or morning/afternoon depending on where you are in the world).

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Buy “The Scream - Street Art - New York City” Prints here, My mobile photography for sale here, My regular photography for sale here, email me, or ask for help.

Street art and a bicycle. Soho, New York City

Through each scattered urban landscape every sidewalk dream unfolds periphally as daily adventurers traverse the city full of promise and silent giddy trepidation.

It’s in the quiet still moments marked by emptiness, vast loneliness and encroaching solitude that these peripheral dreamscapes come into focus.

These moments, suspended in time, marinate in the severity of their potential to eventually etch themselves into the eternity of the mind.

The rest of time moves with the rapid ebb and flow of life like bits and pieces of paint on a wall chipping and peeling off, finally scattering like a discarded lover’s flower petals in the wind.

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Buy “Sidewalk Dream - Street Art - New York City” Prints here, email me, or ask for help.

Chinatown rooftop graffiti. Two Bridges, New York City.

New York City is an urban layer cake.

This is another one of my favorite views in lower Manhattan. It’s a small segment of an entire universe that exists above millions of New Yorkers.

Layers of colorful graffiti cover the rooftops of these Chinatown apartment buildings as rooftop doors blow open in the wind and colorful clothing sways on clotheslines high above the city below.

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Buy “Chinatown Rooftop Graffiti - New York City” Posters and Prints here, email me, or ask for help.

FAILE street art. Houston and Bowery. East Village, New York City.

FAILE is a street art collaboration between Patrick McNeil and Patrick Miller. This wheat-paste masterpiece is the current project of theirs that graces the iconic wall at the corner of Houston Street and the Bowery.

When I was really young I used to imagine that at night when the majority of people went to sleep in New York City, all of the graffiti and street art on the walls would come to life. I still like to think this is the case.

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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.

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V-J Day in Times Square re-imagined. Brooklyn, New York City.

We live in times where other eras are referenced and re-appropriated rapidly and with wild abandon. One could potentially craft dozens upon dozens of essays critiquing our post-post-modern times (and many great critiques already exist).

I came across this rapidly decaying piece of street art last year in Brooklyn. It barely stood out since it was on a store gate that was almost entirely enveloped in shadows. This image is of the famous V-J Day in Times Square photo taken initially by Alfred Eisenstadt on on August 14, 1945. V-J Day was a day in 1945 when the surrender of Japan occurred resulting (loosely) in the end of World War II. It was one of the first times that Japan’s Emperor Hirohito broadcast anything publicly to the Japanese people over the radio and it was to announce the surrender. I am currently taking a class called Asian American Memoirs where we have been covering this time period in a rather intense fashion from the point of view of Japanese Americans. It’s a sobering experience and it makes my heart swell with sadness.

This enduring image has come to represent elation, victory, romance, abandon and joy. However the context is important because when you peel back the layers you realize that history isn’t so tidy and that there are many sides to the story that unfolds with this kiss and subsequent image. One could argue that over time this eternal image of a kiss between a sailor and a nurse has come to develop its own meaning detached from what the subjects were celebrating.

It seems fitting that this image was re-appropriated as a paste-up decaying rapidly yet captured by the same snap of a camera much like the original image was captured.

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Street art on a store gate. Lower East Side, New York City.

Layers of paint, grit, decay and meaning make me fall in love with New York City over and over again.

Elaborate painted dreamscapes unfold on slumbering store gates surrounded by the discarded remnants of every yesterday and today.

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Buy “Every Yesterday - Lower East Side - New York City” Posters and Prints here, email me, or ask for help.

Old and new on a cobblestone street at night. Soho, New York City

The city is composed of many layers. Each layer wraps around the previous layer as the years pass preserved only in fading memory. Under the soft flicker of street lamps you can sometimes catch these battle-scarred battered remains. These transient pieces of the urban landscape are but a pause in the forward momentum of the city; a tattered sigh and a ragged exhale at the end of an excited phrase

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Store gate poetry. Lower East Side, New York City.

The momentary incantations offered up to all who partake in the ritual of observation are what define the urban environment if only for a moment. They are fleeting parts of the visual landscape that embed themselves into the memory of the city.

This reads: “Every crystal falling, turns the water of the eye, folding bright shapes, a dreamer stays high, casting sculptures, myths and smiles vast in the front of each wave, handing down letters, flowers by your bed and a light surrounding your every dance.” - Author’s initial: RDK

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