Category: Icon

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Icon Urban

Friday December 11, 2009

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Today I went to Brooklyn to explore the Brooklyn Bridge from the east.  The Brooklyn Bridge is an icon.  My objective in my icons work is to sneak up on the subject from an unusual angle, approaching it as if it had never been seen before.  This isn’t always successful, but here’s today’s attempt.  This was at mid-day – it would be far more interesting in early morning light.  To be explored further.

Yesterday and today I had a rare moment of self-doubt.  Why am I doing this?  In the end I’m a landscape photographer – some of my work looks architectural because I live (for most of the week) in an urban landscape.  My formal portraits are fine but I don’t seek that work out.  My street work is pedestrian.  I was really struggling last night a Lincoln Center – finally settling on the fountain centered on the Metropolitan Opera.

You’ve heard of Rembrandt and Vermeer and probably Frans Hals.  They painted people (primarily in historical settings) in 17th Century Holland – the “golden era of Dutch painting”.  It’s less likely that you’ve heard of Aelbert Cuyp or Jacob van Ruisdael.  They painted landscape in the same era.  The Wikipedia entry on the golden era says “landscapists were the ‘common Infantry foottmen in the Army of Art'”  citing Samuel van Hoogstraten for the quote.  Citiscapes ranked even lower.

Anyway, here’s today’s view of the Brooklyn Bridge.

Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Categories
Icon Landscape Urban

Monday December 7, 2009

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Today I worked on a long-running project – photographing iconic structures.   I’ve been putting off the Brooklyn Bridge for some time – John Roebling’s masterpiece is a truly intimidating subject.  The light was dull so this is not a day for great art, but for exploring angles and pedestrian approaches in a part of Manhattan that is dominated by on and off ramps.  The plan as always is to sneak up on on the icon, rather than confront it frontally.  I plan on exploring the Brooklyn side later in the week.  If we have a decent sunrise or sunset in the next week I’ll try it in infrared.

Brooklyn Bridge
Brooklyn Bridge
Categories
Icon Landscape Urban

Wednesday December 2, 2009

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – This is a favorite subject of mine: Mies van der Rohe’s iconic Seagram building.  You’ll see this building again on this blog.   The space defined by the Seagram building, its plaza and the Racquet and Tennis Club across Park Avenue is one of the outstanding urban spaces in New York.  This is from the balcony of the Racquet and Tennis Club.  It’s about 5:30 PM so most offices are still illuminated.

Technically this image was stitched from four separate images shot with my Leica M9 and a 35 mm Summicron Asph. lens.  Images were stitched with PTGui Pro software.

Seagram building
Seagram building
Categories
Culture Icon Urban

Monday November 23, 2009

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – A tough day for photographs: meetings all morning followed by a large lunch in a dark restaurant. Ugly, gray light outside. Late in the day I found myself uptown near Frank Lloyd Wright’s Gugenheim Museum. I have an ongoing project shooting iconic buildings as if one happens upon them at random – the objective is to try to capture the surprise of seeing them for the first time. The Gugeneheim is iconic but it’s hard to “happen upon” it – it’s cut off from Central Park across Fifth Avenue by a wall, and it’s hemmed in on the other three sides by larger buildings and the Manhattan grid. I ended up shooting details, and got this as it was getting dark. Not my best work.

The Guggenheim Museum, Manhattan
The Guggenheim Museum, Manhattan
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-Woody's Picks Icon Interior Landscape Urban

Thursday November 19, 2009

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Looking back at the past week’s work I kept coming back to the cemetery in New Preston. I decided to try more images with large out-of-focus areas. Returning to Grand Central Terminal I reshot the phones with a Leica M9 and a 35mm Summicron pre-aspheric version IV lens – I’ll be using this for the next several days. This lens is known as the “bokeh king” – bokeh being a subjective view of the quality of the out of focus portions of the image.

Grand Central Terminal - lower level
Grand Central Terminal – lower level
Categories
Icon Interior Urban

Thursday November 12, 2009

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – I walked around Grand Central Terminal with a small sensor camera, a Ricoh GRD 3, using it as a sketchpad. I’ll come back and shoot infrared once I understand the site better.  This is another architectural icon.  I found myself gravitating toward details.

Grand Central Terminal - Lower Level
Grand Central Terminal - Lower Level
Categories
Icon Infrared Landscape Urban

Friday November 6, 2009

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – We had a lovely, clear late fall day today – unseasonably warm.  This another installment in a long-term project:  shooting iconic places.  The challenge is to get past trite.  This image is shot in infrared, which I use often in Manhattan.  The image of 30 Rock may not be my best image of the day.  One of the most difficult challenges in posting every day is self-editing under time pressure.  It’s easy enough to find the three best, or the many non-keepers.  But the final choice is difficult because it’s hard to sort out what the criteria are.  For example, is there a narrative?  Is it a problem to have churches on three consecutive days.  Anyway, here’s 30 Rockefeller Plaza.

20091106-L1011607 Panorama

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