31-JUL-2011
Memorial, Brooklyn, New York City, New York, 2011
Three stories tall, this memorial mural at a Brooklyn intersection is part of a community tribute to 28 pedestrians killed by cars between 1995 and 2007 in Brooklyn’s Gowanus neighborhood. I abstracted the mural by showing only one third of it – the section at the corner that remembers four-year-old James Rice, who was hit by a car speeding around another corner a block from where this mural now stands. The driver who killed Rice received a ticket for failure to yield. The huge figure of Rice holds up a traffic symbol urging respect for pedestrians. I made this image as a flesh and blood pedestrian paused at the corner below the mural. He was wearing a blue shirt, which virtually matched the ghostly color of the child in the mural above him. I use scale incongruity here to tell my own story: the needless killing of a small boy should loom much larger in our memory than the parade of ordinary day-to-day happenings on the streets of Brooklyn. Drivers who see this memorial through their car windows will not only slow down – they may even think about the nature of mutual respect and the safe sharing of streets.
09-JUL-2010
Celebration, Wall Street, New York City, New York, 2010
Two fifers salute the Fourth of July during a reading of the Declaration of Independence in front of Federal Hall at Wall and Nassau Streets. Behind them loom the incongruously large bronze feet of George Washington, who was inaugurated on this spot in 1789.
10-JUL-2010
Angel, New York City, New York, 2010
The character of a building is often found in its detail. I spotted this small angel flying whimsically over the gated entry to a ground floor apartment in midtown Manhattan. I made this image of it just as the reflection of a passing New York appeared in the window, lending a sense of place to the scene.
16-JUL-2010
Lunch break, Madison Square Park, New York City, New York, 2010
Sitting on a bench alongside of New York City’s Madison Square Park, a man puts aside his cane and his packages to watch the passing parade of New Yorkers on lunch break. He must seem invisible to the two businessmen as they pass him by. The man energetically leading the way is speaking. He gestures forcefully, yet he does not glance at either the man he is talking to, or the man who looks at him from the bench. I made this photograph with a wideangle lens at very close range. None of these men saw me as I made this street photograph – their attention is elsewhere. There are multiple contrasts here – the man on the bench is dressed differently than the others -- he sits, while the businessmen walk past him at full stride. They also express variation in attitude and lifestyle. Yet all three of them still manage to share a common moment here. My lens captures and juxtaposes them incongruously in both space and time. As viewers, we are left to imagine what the speaker might be saying, and what the others are thinking as he speaks.
17-JUL-2010
Chanin Building, New York City, New York, 2010
Built by Irwin S. Chanin in 1929, this art deco 56-story skyscraper, initially a dominant landmark of the midtown skyline, was soon eclipsed by the Chrysler Building just across 42nd Street at Lexington Avenue. What gives the Chanin Building its identity are the spectacular bronze panels that embrace the base of the building. In this close up, I incongruously compare the stylized floral design on one of those panels to a plant that thrives within an office just above it.
13-JUL-2010
Architectural contrast, New York City, New York, 2010
The new academic building of New York’s Cooper Union stands in sharp contrast to the 19th Century brownstone just next door. The new building, which houses the university’s schools of engineering and art, was designed by Thom Mayne and completed in 2009. I made this image from the triangular park just in front of the university’s original home, which stands just across Third Avenue from this pair of buildings. It was in the Great Hall of the school’s original building that Abraham Lincoln delivered his famous Cooper Union speech, leading to his nomination in 1860. By contrasting the architecture on this street corner, I express the growth of not only this venerable institution, but also the astounding changes in New York as a city over the last 150 years.
17-JUL-2010
Taxis at Grand Central Terminal, New York City, New York, 2010
It seems as if seven out of every eight vehicles in midtown Manhattan are taxis. At least that’s the case in this image, where southbound Park Avenue traffic wraps around Grand Central Terminal as it flows downtown. I use a very long telephoto lens (400mm) to compress the stream of vehicles, focusing on the Terminal and the statue of railroad tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt that stands before it. The double yellow line on the street echoes the colors of the taxis and draws the eye deep into the image.
17-JUL-2010
The News Building, New York City, New York, 2010
The News Building was built in 1929, and was the home of the New York Daily News until the mid 1990s. The art deco skyscraper, soaring 476 feet over 42nd Street, served as the model for the headquarters of the fictional Daily Planet, where Superman worked as Clark Kent. I was primarily interested in expressing its character and era by moving in on the wonderful mural carved into the concrete over the front door of the building. I layer the image by including one of the floral baskets that hang from lampposts over the 42nd Street sidewalk. It is useful to compare my approach here to a more descriptive image of the same subject, as published in Wikipedia’s entry on the building. By moving closer and shooting upwards, my expression of the scene offers detail and emphasis that is not available to us in the literal image which can be seen at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NY_Daily_News_door_jeh.JPG
15-JUL-2010
Frustration and patience, New York City, New York, 2010
Instead of only shooting the flow of evening traffic here on Fifth Avenue, which is full of color and energy, I focus instead on five people trying to hail taxis, and use the colorful traffic flow as my context. The resulting image is full of energy yet also frustration, because it appears that all of the taxis that are approaching have their roof lights off, which means they either full or off duty and are not going to stop for any of these people. The body language here suggests patience and resignation – only one of the five people can make the effort to raise an arm to hail a taxi, and that’s the man at right whose arm is half-heartedly upright in mock salute.
16-JUL-2010
Coffee drinker, New York City, New York, 2010
I caught this man, cup of coffee raised to his lips, striding past a huge fast food coffee advertisement, and added the subway signage at left as a primary foreground layer to suggest a sense of place. This image took about fifteen minutes to find, and numerous false attempts to create. I liked the powerful graphics in the coffee advertisement as a background, and more importantly, it was in shadow. So was the subway entrance. The area between them was illuminated by morning light, which vividly emphasized anyone passing between the advertisement and the subway entrance. I photographed numerous people as they moved through that lighted area, using my burst mode to freeze them in mid-stride within the dark area of the poster between the two coffee cups. Many of the people had just emerged from this fast food shop with coffee in their hands, but only this man was actively enjoying his at the instant I shot.
15-JUL-2010
Louis Vuitton Fifth Avenue store, New York, NewYork, 2010
The famous French fashion house, founded in 1854, sells luxury luggage and leather goods, along with shoes, watches, sunglasses, and books. It has a prominent place on New York’s Fifth Avenue, home to most of the major fashion shops in the city. I photographed it at night, creating an essence by abstracting the building down to this silhouetted stairway linking its floors, featuring a silhouetted mannequin carrying an LV bag framed in a doorway. The brand acquires a mysterious note here, aided by the lush colors of the purple geometry and the mesh grid that helps abstract the scene.
17-JUL-2010
Noon, Grand Central Terminal, New York City, New York, 2010
The massive 13-foot wide clock on the façade of Grand Central Terminal is flanked by three huge statues, which made up the largest sculptural group in the world when created by French sculptor Jules-Alexis Coutan in 1914. I use a 400mm telephoto lens to zoom up to the spectacular clock and catch the minute hand just as it crawled past noon. I cropped the statue on top of the clock -- winged Mercury -- out of this picture, as well as Minerva, who sits to its right. I include only Hercules, who seems to be relaxing from his labors at noon, perhaps even thinking about lunch.