NY Through the Lens - New York City Photography

The Brooklyn Bridge. New York City.

When the clouds pull their veils back from the sky’s face after a storm, the light hits the world at such an angle that even the most rigid man-made creations glimmer like the water’s surface in the sun.

If you could distill New York City down to an essence so pure that it glimmered in such a way, it would look like this: captured, cooled, magnificent in its indistinguishable hand-woven-steel beauty.

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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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Rainy day. Greenwich Village, New York City.

Every drop of rain paints the city with an otherworldly light: tiny illuminated universes cast their glow onto the city with every luminous splatter.

Wet earth in the form of darkened concrete springs forth new life in the form of urban wanderers who migrate quickly from one patch of earth to another as their wet reflections echo their movements.

And after the day has unleashed its deluge of light, the city soaks in the infused-afterglow.

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View from Belvedere Castle in the snow overlooking the San Remo. Winter. Central Park, New York City.

In the yawning hours of the morning, the earth stretches its snow-laden limbs skyward and the clouds leave a dissolving trail of heart-heavy whispers in their wake as all of the city’s structures deliquesce into nothingness.

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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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Rainy Doyers street in Chinatown. New York City.

When the sky seduces the city with its tears of happiness, the streets swoon illuminated by the glow of nearby lights.

Broken-hearted alleys fill up: lovers with empty recesses in their hearts soak in the warm afterglow of what the sky has wrought.

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The New York City skyline and the Manhattan Bridge illuminated by the sun. Viewed from the Brooklyn Bridge.

I have stated many times in conversation and online that photography found me a few years ago and I found, in turn, that photography and writing are two of my biggest passions in this world. This image inhabits a very special place in my heart and it’s why I chose it to accompany a post a few months back which was all about how and when I started taking photos.

It was taken near the tail-end of a storm back in May of 2011. It had rained only an hour before I made my way across the Brooklyn Bridge and as the sun started to set over New York City, the storm clouds parted just enough to allow the most magnificent amount of sunlight wash over the Manhattan Bridge. As the rest of the New York City skyline faded into the languid haze in behind the gorgeously lit bridge, I knew right then and there that photography was something that made me feel more alive and at one with myself than anything else in the world.

I am submitting this photo to the Best of 2011 - G+ Photography Book project which is a photography book created by the Google Plus community for charity. I can’t think of a more perfect image to submit.

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Pell Street, Chinatown in the rain. New York City.

Under the weight of the sky’s tears streets glisten reflecting the gleam in the eye of the clouds overhead. The day washes away slowly: its sorrows and joys melt into puddles under-foot.

It’s on these sorts of evenings that all of the cares in the world pale in comparison to the momentary haze that engulfs the city: a sultry, sorrowful, sedate embrace.

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City street at night. Financial District, New York City.

At night after the multitudes have retreated to their homes away from the buildings and streets that hold them close during the day the city relaxes shaking the dust of the long day from its concrete limbs.

The street lights flicker like dream-heavy blinks of an eye while smokestacks exhale world-weary breaths of smoke into the yawning night air.

Re-posted as a request. It’s been a strange couple of days. To those who celebrate Thanksgiving, may you have a wonderful one and to those who don’t celebrate, may you have a fabulous few days of rest and relaxation.

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Autumn in full swing. Central Park, New York City.

After nearly 6 weeks of dealing with a fairly intense leg injury, I was finally able to go out for the first time yesterday and walk around the way I normally do. I think I walked something like three miles in total! It felt incredible to not be limited in the way I was limited previously while dealing with the slow healing process. I ended up going to Central Park to soak in the remaining bits of autumn since autumn is so fleeting here in New York City.

I met up with a few other photographers from Google Plus later in the afternoon. Prior to meeting up with them I got to the park several hours earlier to go to my favorite sections of the park. I was still a little timid and apprehensive about doing a lot of walking even though I got the go-ahead from my doctor this past week to engage in my normal level of activity. Thankfully, I realized an hour into climbing around in piles of leaves (sometimes it’s fun to abandon the paved paths in Central Park especially when leaves are involved) that I was going to be just fine! The foliage was a bit past peak foliage but there were some genuinely magical landscapes.

It’s no secret that autumn is my favorite time of year. A while back I mentioned to people on Google Plus that I am saddened that autumn’s finest foliage only seems to grace us with its presence for a few weeks out of the year. Someone commented back to me that the short-lived nature of autumn is what makes it so special. Perhaps there is some truth to that notion. The fleeting transient nature of autumn does make it memorable.

There is a bittersweet quality to the action of capturing it in full splendor; giddy delight at experiencing something so magical mixed with sorrowful anxiety knowing that in a short time all of it will be only a preserved memory.

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13-15 South William Street also known as 57 Stone Street. Financial District, New York City.

Something I absolutely love about New York City is that tucked away between the towering monuments of modernity that populate the cityscape are streets that look as if they have been transported from another era and geographic location entirely. These streets are suspended in time like flies in amber.

This area is known as the Stone Street historic district in lower Manhattan. Bound by Stone Street, Pearl Street, and South William Streets and Mill Lane, it is a section that is unlike any of its surrounding blocks. This particular section is bound by South William street. Around the block from this part of the area are other historic buildings and the Stone Street area ‘proper’.

In 1903, the architect C.P.H. Gilbert designed new street facades on the buildings in this section of South William Street (57 Stone Street on the other side). Gilbert’s neo-Dutch Renaissance architecture features structural details like stepped gables and strapwork and was a nod to the early settlement of Manhattan .

This area which dates back to the 1600s when New York City was first colonized by Dutch settlers was sadly destroyed by the Great Fire of 1835. The surrounding section of Stone Street was rebuilt with granite bases of post-and-lintel construction and upper-additions of brick which were specifically erected for importers and merchants.

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Red fire escape illuminated by sunlight. East Village, New York City.

When the sun dips feverishly close to the horizon, there is an hour or two when even the most ordinary of scenes become extraordinary. The day’s harsh light collapses into shards of warmth and radiance and windows open their eyes wide open reflecting the sun’s last lusty overtures.

It’s during these last moments that buildings soak in the afterglow of the sun’s long lingering kiss and shadows inch closer and closer to these alluring shards of radiance hoping to bask in the sun’s sensual embrace.

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New York City skyline featuring the Manhattan Bridge as viewed from Brooklyn.

If there is one opening sequence in cinema that perfectly illustrates even a tiny iota of the overwhelming love I have for New York City, it’s the opening sequence to Woody Allen’s Manhattan which you can view here: Opening sequence and dialogue. I know that people have very definite ideas about Woody Allen but his early body of work still contains some of my favorite interpretations of life in Manhattan and this particular opening still chokes me up absolutely every time I watch it especially the montage from 1:52 on. I actually learned how to play Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue on the piano when I was younger almost entirely because of this opening sequence :).

I was asked a while ago if I ever get bored or jaded about certain views or landscapes in New York City. I didn’t really know how to answer the question without sounding like a blubbering idiot. I know many people seem to get bored of overly-photographed parts of New York City but for me, there is always something new and something special imparted to these landscapes based on each individual artist’s perspective.

The photo in this post is of a landscape that overwhelms me every time I lay eyes on it. For me, this scene encompasses a feeling that is hard to express entirely in words. It’s how the light falls onto the Manhattan Bridge embracing its architecture in a glow while the skyline gracefully pushes through the dreamy haze distilling the essence of New York City down to its purest forms of hope, beauty and possibility.

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Freshly fallen snow. Lower East Side, New York City

It is snowing here in lower Manhattan. I can’t recall a time in recent memory when it snowed this early in the year. The flakes are enormous and quite beautiful. I love snow in the city when it first falls. The city is so beautiful in freshly fallen snow. Streets empty and street lights illuminate the swirling snow.

This particular photo was taken last winter during a blizzard. One of my favorite winter activities is bundling myself up and wandering around in the snow. In the case of a blizzard, I don’t really recommend this unless you are sure you have places you can duck into every so often since the wind gusts during blizzard conditions are usually over 50 miles per hour. On the night that I took this photo, the winds were so strong that it was difficult to walk straight and I think I ended up ducking into doorways and still-open stores about a dozen times to thaw out and resist frostbite. I am lucky to live in a neighborhood (Lower East Side) that has a number of bodegas and stores that stay open no matter what the weather is and I am grateful to the places that gave me brief moments of warmth and shelter.

I don’t know if this early snowfall is an indicator of a snowy winter ahead but I do know that if it does snow quite a bit, I will be out there bundled up twirling under the street lights with the falling snow.

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