HDR Photography
Liberty Island played such a huge role in the media I consumed as a child—the most iconic symbol of New York (far more recognizable to a child than e.g. the Empire State Building)—that seeing it from One World Observatory was surreal.
On this bright Sunday morning, I finally photographed the mighty Manhattan skyline from high above its (mostly) rectilinear grid. This is my favorite kind of photograph: The expanse of cloud-dappled space stretches all the way to tree-covered hills at the horizon and the cityscape seems to offer infinite detail down at the level of individual windows.
Visiting Governors Island (lacking that apostrophe since 1784) for the first time this weekend, I was astonished to see its historic buildings standing in such contrast to the sleekly modern shape of One World Trade Center in the distance. The island is only 800 yards off the coast of Manhattan, but seems a generation away.
I caught John Wick Chapter 3 in theaters this weekend; that movie’s take on New York City inspired me to finish processing my RAWs from my October 2018 trip to photograph its downtown skyline. Perhaps that sense of a hidden world lurking around every corner is captured in the details along the shore.
New York has something for everyone (perhaps even the nature lover in Central Park); it feels at times like a Swiss Army knife of a city. When I took this panorama originally, it was so large that it didn’t fit well as a single image. Collapsing the picture to a “tiny planet” stereographic projection, the image now looks literally like those images of a Swiss Army knife, opened to show all of its different components.
Midtown Manhattan’s golden skyline during the blue hour seems to stretch on “forever”; why not introduce some periodic boundary conditions and make the effect literal?
The density of Manhattan’s skyline makes me appreciate the political will required to preserve public open spaces in urban areas. A visit to Liberty State Park makes for a delightful break from the “concrete jungle”.
