This morning, Ben Maher won gold riding Explosion W in the individual jumpers at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. I captured the pair in action at the Longines Global Champions League on Governors Island in 2019.
Category: New York
New Jersey & New York
While the distant New Jersey countryside looks comparatively two-dimensional, the structure of Manhattan and Hoboken are so vertical.
Governors Island (No Apostrophe)
Seen here from the One World Observatory on a sunny Sunday morning, Governors Island has been mostly transformed to park space. On the right side of the island, you can see the Longines Global Champions Tour grounds are still in place from the day before.
Four Trees
Though it may be a semi-intended consequence of Manhattan’s zoning rules regarding floor space, setbacks, and public space, public art in downtown Manhattan is still refreshing. Jean Dubuffet’s Groupe de Quatres Arbres and its curving lines fits so nicely against the linear structure of the building behind it that I’m naturally drawn in.
Scales of Structure
Human structures—food trucks and skyscrapers—side by side on a Manhattan Sunday morning provide a striking statement on the possible scales of fabrication.
Mostly New Jersey
The dividing of the southern end of the Hudson River into New York and New Jersey is subject to a great deal of mythology, but whatever the truth is, the practical reality today makes the difference between the two feel pretty fuzzy.
Midtown B&W
Though Midtown’s 20th-century skyline is iconic, it’s quickly being amended with needle buildings. Time will tell how these impact its icon status.
West Side Highway
The West Side Highway has fascinated me ever since I saw it in this very illegal lap around Manhattan years ago, but the road was mostly empty on this Sunday morning for a different kind of race: a running road race.
Riding in New York City
Last fall, we traveled to Governors Island, just off Manhattan, to see the Longines Global Champions League competition. Teams from all over the world ferried horses to the weird little island to clear some serious jumps.
And here is the likely reason for the League’s stop in New York City: Georgina Bloomberg, owner of the New York Empire
Ferry to Governors Island
So much of the experience of Manhattan involved being surrounded by the tall buildings that to suddenly be “outside” it—perhaps on a sunny morning, on a ferry—it a bit surprising.
Helicopters Over the East River
The brightly colored helicopters leaving the heliport on the East River stand out against gray and green colors of Brooklyn.
Just moments later, that color palette swaps—a colorless helicopter in front of colorful buildings. Perhaps my favorite detail of this image is just how much you can see of the passenger (first officer?) in the window of the Eurocopter, adding a human element to an array of otherwise designed/manufactured structures.
Brooklyn Bridge
When pretty much everything else in this picture is newer than the Brooklyn Bridge, the beauty of the timeless design is effectively articulated.
North in the Morning
Cityscapes were the images that first really drew me to photography—those images with seemingly infinite detail. Zooming deeper and deeper reveals trees and cars and people down at street level. Surpassing the current limits in this respect will probably mean a new camera (or a real commitment to multi-shot panoramas.)
Two Bridges
I’m aware that this picture technically contains three bridges, but it is nonetheless an image of the Two Bridges neighborhood just after sunrise. There are so many sunset pictures of New York; I think the dearth of morning shots is correlated with the sleep schedule of the average photographer.
Inhuman Scale
The absolute enormity of Manhattan’s buildings is sometimes inaccurately portrayed by their steep, vertical faces. The great wings of Westfield World Trade Center leave little doubt in the mind. Look at those two tiny people at the bottom of the image.
