In a recent thread in the Medium Format forum I posted some photos shot of New York City with the Pentax 645D.
I shared with you the
gallery.
Revisiting the library I found some other shots that I missed at first sight… so I updated that gallery.
Here I would like to post an image that normally I would have thrown into the garbage but, to my own surprise, I decided to keep it as I wonder if it doesn't illustrate the NYC rush and lifestyle… Am I wrong? does it spoil my own usual image of producing extremely sharp images?
Comments welcome, I put my head "on the billot"…
Nicolas,
I salute you for not throwing away such a serendipitous picture with the colors and energy of a Van Gogh. There's definitely an insanity in New York!
Everything happens twice as fast as anywhere else. Take walking, for example, the people walk like athletes in some marathon, driven to not waste any more of their time in the outside air as absolutely necessary. They all have timetables and appointments packed into their busy days. The visits to the dry cleaners to get rid of the lingering smell of cigarette smoke from last nights party, which started at 11pm and then the mailing of the package at FEDEX, to return the dress she had for the night, the rush to the 8:30 am dentist's appointment to arrive at work at 11 am and then stay till 6:30 to make up the time. It's a fast pace which no Parisian could easily adapt to. (The French apparently have the highest productivity and the least working hours of any Western country).
Dating, I'm told is fast. People go out to dine or clubs at 9:00 or even 10 pm. A long-term relationship for a New York girl is when the gentleman is still there, beside her, when she wakes up in the morning! Then there's time to disclose names and whether or not he's attached. But the reaching out and touching someone is indeed part of the true New York. You're welcome, but fast. The cabs, welcome, but fast!
So your hectic picture is a very apt image of racing haptic way of life. Just make siblings, print them large and restrict the number of prints to 3. Now find a mantra, so that you yourself
believe in the works, without reserve, as if Moses, himself, brought them down from mount Sinai!
Photography does not need to draw things as discrete objects. It can also record
concepts and this is achieved here with aplomb.
Asher
BTW, the falling flashes on the upper right do frighten me a little, as it beings back the horror of desperate workers in the Twin Towers, throwing themselves out windows, rather than be burnt alive.