A Project Emerges!

Upon arrival in the Big Apple, I had in mind doing some street photography (naturally!). I was thinking of documenting a specific theme, say, “feet” or “subway interactions” or “tourists taking selfies” or “elegantly dressed New Yorkers” or “people with dogs” or…whatever. “Street” seemed the obvious genre, given New York’s fame in that regard.

Instead, an unexpected project just sort of rolled out spontaneously as I let my camera do what it wanted. (I guess the trend started right away, if you peruse the posts from the previous few days.)

What is it?

Well, we might call this the Orwellian-Big Brother-Blade Runner, Anonymous, Cold Concrete, City Project, with all images in B&W and shot with the 70-200 f/4 telephoto to compress, to isolate details, and to emphasize pattern and perspective. In none of the images will an actual, live, human bean appear…well, maybe not. (After all, they are all trapped behind the high walls of steel, concrete, and billboard ads, working like busy honey bees, right?)

Mostly I have found myself working on the immense, foreboding, separating, impersonal–yet beautiful–structures that abound and bound on Manhattan Island–sometimes juxtaposed with symbols, curiosities, and a smattering of those omnipresent Big Brother Madison Avenue billboards which are always attempting to mold our thinking and habits.

I am still in the preliminaries with all of this thinking. Hopefully, things will gel as I refine my selection of photographs and give the project some more brain time.

Here are a few potential portfolio images (check out the posts from the previous few days for other potentials, and standby for more):