I often find myself gravitating back to the Queensboro Plaza Subway platform. This elevated stop receives multiple trains before they all fan out into the reaches of Queens. I like to catch passengers on their transfers during the evening rush hours. During this time ribbons of light filter between the awnings and trains to catch passersby in thin slices of light. I’ll have to find myself a few new places, otherwise pretty soon I could have a whole series of images just from this one location.
I remember myself staring out into the black tunnels while riding the subway cars from the Brooklyn to Manhattan. I would be ecstatic when we ran side by side with parallel trains, or I spotted a graffiti wall in an abandoned station. So here is this little girl, making faces toward unknown passersby. Here are two boys wearing forlorn faces and hats that belong to much older men. Here is a chess player roused from his bench at West 4. You can find all of this any old day on the NYC Subway.
As the clock hits afternoon hours, thousands of school kids travel the subways, in this case the C Train. Often times their joy from finishing the school day is perceived as unwelcome rowdiness. Those, as well as the introspective moments, are all part of the day on ‘The Great Equalizer’, my uncle Jimmy’s name for the NYC Subway.
Some great shots happen in Columbus Park, on the South side of Chinatown, especially during high noon, where just a smidgen of light filters through buildings and branches. I have visited here many times, and I have learned that it takes a good deal of patience and a little bit of stealth to achieve images like the one above. Most people who live in Chinatown see the camera as a nuisance that infiltrates their daily lives, especially by the swarm of tourists toting their DSLR’s around the narrow, busy streets.
End of the smoke
Got to love Coney Island, even in the off-season, it can provide wonderful photo opportunities.
Tall Tales
Guard Dog
I count five hands (over to the left please)
The birds at Nathan’s Famous
Here are a few from Brighton Beach. If you haven’t been, you should get yourself out there. It is the best way to experience the culture of Little Odessa, frozen in the early 90′s.
Reflection and Cathedral Peak, Yosemite
I set out to photograph in the Yosemite high country for my one day off this summer, seeking the somewhat hidden Cathedral Lakes. Little did I know the popularity of this hike. The first of the lakes was incredible, but I was destined to share it with almost a dozen other hikers. Trying to find a quieter place on the other side of the lake, I found two more individuals, probably also seeking their solitude at the edge of the Yosemite wilderness. Unsatisfied, I began to climb a rather vertical escarpment 600ft below Tressidor Peak. At last! I found myself forgetting about worldly problems, and began focusing on all the varieties of delicate mountain flowers, features of the granite landscape, and rolling in the remainder of snow. Up here around 10,000ft, I could feel that very few footsteps have ever trod here. I continued until I couldn’t go vertically, and then scrambled across the cliffs until I reached the ridge between the Cathedral Lakes. From here, the sun was beginning to set, and the final photograph of this series was from the lower lake. On this day, unlike any of the other in the two total months I have spent here, I took good photographs. They convey the little observations I made while hiking and bushwhacking the high country.
This park, more than any other in the park system, has been photographed as early as daguerreotypes reached Western shores. Some of the most intrepid photographers, like Muybridge and Watkins, dragged mammoth plates (22inch plate glass negatives), assistants, and mule teams up and down the Yosemite Valley. To cap it off, you can’t visit this park without being reminded that one of the greatest landscape photographers, Ansel Adams, spent most of his career photographing here. All this history, who wouldn’t be daunted to attempt to make great photographs here? Way up where the air is thin (and I probably wasn’t getting enough oxygen in my brain), I realized that I just need to forget the history of this place. I needed to stop unconsciously making copies of all these images that I have studied in great detail. I just needed to find the small things that make Yosemite unique, and take my own unique perspectives to the iconic features that have been documented for almost two centuries by picture makers.
The Escarpment, Yosemite
Old Pine and Cathedral Peak, Yosemite
Lower Cathedral Lake, Yosemite
Grand Geyser with Bison, Yellowstone NP 2012
“Grand Geyser with Bison”, the photograph above this text, was a very special moment. As the light finally dropped out of the clouds, this bison lumbered through my frame, allowing me to capture a large panorama of the entire scene. Rarely does the light behave in this way, and even more rarely do wild animals behave for the camera. Unfortunately, the photographs in this post aren’t done any justice by life on the interweb. Therefore I decided to include a detail of the image. The full sized image is approximately 4ft wide if it were to be printed.
Grand Geyser with Bison (detail)
Grand Prismatic Spring, Yellowstone NP 2012
Chroma Pool, Yellowstone NP 2012
Emerald Pool, Yellowstone NP 2012
The Snake River and the Teton Range (before sunrise)
When you look at the Teton Range from Grand Teton National Park, you see the shapes of mountains that you drew as a child. The range is very triangular, jagged, and snow-capped. With such trail names including “Death Canyon” and “Static Peak Divide”, you know know that your in for a vertical climb as you explore the various canyons wrapping in and around the Teton peaks. I would like to say more about this park, or these pictures, but I still have much exploring to do of the Tetons before I call myself an expert on the location. These sunrise shots happened to have incredible clouds, and those made the photographs special. I did find it amazing how the light is so different in all three photos, despite the fact that they were all taken inside of a 15 minute time span.
The Snake River and the Teton Range (first light)
The Snake River and the Teton Range
View of Chinatown, Lower Manhattan, and Financial District
Hurricane Sandy blew a Con Edison power plant on 14th and FDR during the storm a week ago, leaving the lower third of Manhattan without electricity. During that five days, the city dwellers below 30th St. hunkered down, walking dozens of blocks for cell service, traveled the city with flashlight, or retreated to uptown and Brooklyn. Some of the shots are difficult to tell that there is a blackout, since the long exposures pick up so much reflected light from cars. If you look carefully, there are no street lights, traffic signals, and very little light from apartments or offices. There seemed to be no panic, but was definitely a surreal and humbling experience for New Yorkers.
Unfortunately I tipped my camera in the dark, breaking the camera and the lens. Hopefully, both are repairable. In the meantime, I will be borrowing or using film. Along with camera, my heart is temporarily broken.
Empire State from 16th and 5th Ave
Traffic Cop, flares, and the Bowery
Chinatown gridlock
The Bowery and Taxis
Financial District from Manhattan Bridge
Taxi in the Garment District
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