Yesterday, I had the great opportunity to trek all over the city in search for the best places to shoot great street and landscape photography with a representative of a major tech company that is launching a new location-based photo app soon in three cities including NYC, Seattle and San Francisco and they asked me to be the lead photography adviser for our great city.
Thus, all day yesterday, from 7 AM until 8 PM, we traversed as much of this magnificent metropolis as was possible before our soles ached and our memory cards were overflowing with pictures that prove that New York City is the absolute best pace for photography in the world.
If you are interested, I posted map of many of the spots we hit: Lorenzo’s List of the Top 25 Hot Spots for Photography in New York City.
Happy Photo Trekking,
Lorenzo
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25 Lessons I’ve Learned about photography Life!
The famous psychiatrist, Dr. Karl Menninger said, “Attitudes are more important than facts.” That is worth repeating until its truth grips you. Any fact facing us, however difficult, even seemingly hopeless, is not so important as out attitude toward the fact. How you think about a fact may defeat you before you ever do anything about it. You may permit a fact to overwhelm you mentally before you start to deal with it actually. On the other hand, a confident and optimistic thought pattern can modify or overcome the fact altogether.
Norman Vincent Peale, The Power of Positive Thinking
View LARGE.
I know I’ve said it before, if you count my posted photos that’s practically 25,000 times before, but I just have to say it again—God, I Love New York!
I got off the R train this morning at 6:55 feeling exuberant after taking a few good shots on the subway and walked up onto Broadway at 23rd—I was in awe of what I saw.
Most people, especially hurried-frazzled, and often frustrated, New Yorkers might likely say, “There’s a bunch of people crossing the street—so what?”
So what is that I saw something much more magnificent.
For I saw a unified horde of dark and tan overcoats scurrying across the glistening wet streets of this teeming metropolis, streets that are often striped with incredibly-aesthetically appealing white lines; the moving scene as a whole, complementing an exquisitely grey-and-blue overcast sky that served as the backdrop to the landmark Flat Iron building in the near-distance.
At that moment I yearned to get my camera out and take more photos. Alas, I knew I had important work at the office waiting for me, and so I couldn’t linger and loiter about the streets as I would have otherwise preferred to have done. I thought to myself, “God, what I would give to be able just to take photos of the city and its people all day long!”
As I crossed Madison Square Park, I also thought, “God, I Love New York!”
Because, I do.
What I see everyday is often gut-wrenchingly amazing to me. Thus, I am often compelled to either take my camera or pen-and-pad out to somehow capture the ineffable.
In particular, I am especially enamored by city people, if only because I believe everyday people are beautiful—much more so than nipped-and-tucked, botoxed-and-otherwise “beautified” celebrities. And I think, if I lived in the country, instead of the city, I find the weathered faces and callused hands just as beguiling.
Nonetheless and allthemore, I am rather fortunate to live and work and love in New York City.
Thus, I practically creamed my pants this morning when I saw a young lady crossing the street dressed in a fashionable P-coat, Prince-purple velvet stilettos, an unlit cigarette coolly dangling from her hand, and jeans tattered at the cuffs—I was whet, not because it turned me on in some sort of sordid-lascivious way, but rather because it piqued the bestial aesthete in me.
Sometimes I walk about this city and think, “Who needs galleries and catwalks and glossy magazines when you have a vibrant-and-glorious living museum buzzing about you day-in and day-out?”
Fact is, if you open your eyes and allow all your senses to tune in to your surroundings, the scenery of your diurnal journey—you don’t! need others to curate, exhibit or otherwise display what is "beautiful" for you. Beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder, and thus, sometimes all you need to do is simply stop, if only for a moment, and behold.
Problem is, most of us, me included, are stuck behind a desk for most of the day. Most of us must grind and grunt and bend over, over and over again, all day long, so that ultimately, we don’t get to see or experience much beyond three grey carpeted cubicle walls. And most of us, are too frazzled and preoccupied otherwise when we leave to take notice of anything as we horse-blind our way home.
Regardless, on my short excursions to and from work, I still find myself invigorated by the little I do get to behold on the streets of my beloved city.
Much of the time what I feel about this town is equivalent to what one feels when you first fall in love with someone, and you want to tell them how and why and that you do—love them—over and over again.
And that’s exactly how I feel about New York City.
Thus, with this set I’m sharing a few sneak preview shots of four different sets of new photos that I am working on, which convey my exuberance and passion for NYC.
The subway shots here were taken this morning at 7 AM on the 1 and R trains, the other two were taken last Thursday night, during and after a photo shoot with my dear friend Gillian Crosson for a prospective upcoming advertising campaign.
January 10, 2008, New York City:
Ten of the photos in this set were taken of the crowd at the new Robert Rauschenberg Runts exhibition on opening night at Pace Wildenstein.
I kept hearing everyone asking, “Are these paintings?” Amazingly, they really do look like photographs.
“The paintings Runts on exhibit each measure approximately 5' x 6' and are the smallest works the artist has produced in many years. These channel surfing montages are assembled from Rauschenberg’s archive of photographs, which he then transfers onto polylaminate synthetic material mounted on aluminum panels. Runts represents a decades-long involvement in transfer images that began over 50 years ago transferring the medium of photography into painting.”
And yes, Jessie, he was there; he’s still alive, in a wheelchair, but after 60 years of shows and hundreds of solo exhibits, he's still quite alive…
A few days ago my estranged wife handed me a photo of me and hizoner, the honorable David Dinkins, former mayor of New York City, which she had come across while sorting through papers.
It was taken 15 years ago when we were in grad school together at Columbia, immediately after I had interviewed him on stage as part of an event that I had organized for my colleagues. I didn’t give the picture much of a second thought, putting it aside, inside my current read, The Divorce Process: Empowerment Through Knowledge, to use as a book marker.
At least, I didn’t think twice about it until Dom started reading the book that I had left on the couch, and upon finding the photo again, asked, “Is he dead yet?” or maybe she asked, “Is he still alive?” I’m not really sure, to be honest, how she asked exactly, but I do know that she essentially insinuated either way that she thought he wasn’t around anymore.
I think he still is, I answered.
Subsequently, this prompted me to ponder my own existence. As I am turning 40 in about 10 days, on Thanksgiving. Contemplating her question, I was somewhat shocked into consciousness about my own age, something that I am not usually all-too self-conscious about.
However, as I took a look at the photo again, it suddenly occurred to me that this was me 15 years ago, the thought resounding within me, echoing and piquing me to assess how time has exacted its toll upon me.
I suppose I’ve survived its wrath fairly well—I still have all my teeth, I haven’t started using a cane, and I’m still riled by desire practically every day.
However, I have gained some weight, keeping it off is an ongoing endeavor, the application of which fluctuates with the tide of life’s demands.
I don’t run as much as I used to, but I think that is primarily because I’ve picked up a number of vices over the last 15 years.
And occasionally I have problems that I have to deal with that slow me down and get me bickering more than I care to admit—heel spurs, back aches, asthma.
Nonetheless and allthemore, I am still alive, and perhaps, a bit wiser than I was 15 years ago.
I am beginning to understand the differences between the thrashing exuberance of youth and the calmer take on life that comes with age and experience.
I am beginning to see the follies of maturity as well, in turn embracing and being inspired by the courage and curiosity of my children.
I am beginning to envision the end and in turn thinking about how I should begin preparing for it—Do I want to fall or roll downward? And if I choose the latter, am I willing to pull back on the reins of the frantic fears of my middle age?
I am beginning to realize what matters most to me is what has long mattered most to me: it is immaterial and will not be considered an asset when it comes time to file for divorce.
I am beginning to learn that I shouldn’t work so hard at those things that will prove irrelevant in the end and to work smarter at those endeavors that will.
I am beginning to know how to let go, especially as things and plans and people unexpectedly perish and no longer take part in our lives.
I am beginning to face adversity with a smile and a grin, more often than with a furrowed brow, tightened fists and chagrin—for life is only as hard as you want it to be.
I am beginning to feel calm among the storms, each one becoming slightly easier to weather, knowing I’ve been through it all before.
I am beginning to understand others more and more; thus, increasingly wanting to know less and less—subsequently, solitude and I are becoming best of friends.
And, I find, that truly, I am beginning to enjoy my life more than ever before.
*
Oh, and by the way, I checked: David Dinkins still lives. He turned twice my age (i.e. 80) this last July.
Thank you Triborough for sharing the photo above of Bill McCreary, David Dinkins, and John Roland taken in March of this year.
He reports that according to the Gothamist, Dinkins just had his appendix removed a few weeks ago.
Guess I’m doomed, considering I had mine removed long before him, at the age of 32, on Valentine’s Day 1999.
*
Forthcoming! 25 Lessons: The Art of Living, to be published by Cyan Books in February 2008.
Until then, I’m happy to share with you the original 25 musings.
To Live, Hope, Survive, and Breath in New York City
Although I love taking photos for many-many reasons, the one thing I lament about this medium is that there are a million sensations that we miss that are vital to the experience that is otherwise only visually-captured by each photo.
This is especially true in New York City, where you are often overwhelmed by the clamor, the putrescence, and the grit of city life. As a result, you tend to shut yourself off from all this in order to endure.
Unfortunately, as quintessential as plugging in your iPod may be to survival in the great Cosmos, many great and wonderful things are missed as a result of tuning out. Because if you can tolerate the hustle and bustle, the noise and the general chagrin of every stranger that glares at you, the experience can be quite magical.
This morning for instance, while riding the train to work, I experienced the following attack to my senses:
·The suffocating overdose of Old Spice wafting in waves from the big guy in front of me;
·The instant-reeling, that not-so-pleasant vertigo feeling, that overcame me when 2-hour old coffee breath rolled over my shoulder like the eerie fog from a horror movie.
·The trickle of sweat sliding down my back due to disparity between the MTA’s attempt at temperature control and Mother Nature’s control over the Earth—for although I was smiling while I zipped in the plush liner into my winter coat this morning and I broke out those new leather gloves because the weather-guy blurted “It’s colllld out there!,” the Metropolitan Transit Authority apparently wasn’t listening. And so I ended up going from a cozy bundled-up 40 degrees to a crowded 80 degrees and-getting-hotter on the rush-hour train;
·And most titillating, was the flutter of endorphins triggered by long lashes, light eyes and a seductively-shy smile from across the car.
This small-small sample of what we miss when we merely look at the photos is why I love writing as often as possible about what I hear, smell, touch and feel when taking photos on the streets of New York; writing allows me to fill in the important details, the sine-qua-non of the true metropolitan experience. And this is why I have tried to make it an essential element of my particular brand of photography.
Thus, I am grateful to all those who take the extra time to read these complementary little musings of mine. And I hope that from the little that I offer that you can divine a part of what it is like to live, hope, survive, and breath in New York City.
Some day I hope to return to my beloved California, so that I may document much as I have done here. For it is a wholly different experience to live, breath, shine and languor in the Sunshine State.
“Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft. Travel.” ~ Mary Schmich, Columnist, Chicago Tribune
