HDR Photography
Given the catastrophic cost of real estate at the southern end of Manhattan, a look at the use of rooftop space reveals a sharp contrast: roofs are either lush garden spaces or barren mechanical utility areas. I had expected to see more “in between” spaces among the penthouses—casually or informally used rooftops. I guess nothing spends more than a few hours on a New York rooftop without a reason to be there.
Neighborhoods like Greenwich Village, Chelsea, and the Bowery are remarkably low-rise until they suddenly run into the wall that is Midtown Manhattan. The new pencil towers under construction may look out of place, but at least they don’t block the views of nature to the north.
Days are shortening and skies are hardening and winter is coming.
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”.
I have to admire the sailors who are out on their boats at the beginning and end of a season. The water is cold, the air is cold, and I’m sure the wet lines are cold, too, but still they persist.
The sunset reflected off downtown Manhattan’s towers is the perfect background for a portrait of a mogul.
Downtown Manhattan eventually ends, giving way to Brooklyn in the distance under the rising moon. I took this picture at the end of a weekend trip, just before heading back home; there was an appropriate symmetry to a sunset skyline marking the finale of a New York trip.
Manhattan has been the site of an unsurprisingly large number of climactic cinematic showdowns. In the dramatic golden light of an autumn sunset, this particular image contrasts two tall towers on the horizon: in the east, the Empire State Building, site of King Kong’s climb, and in the west, the new Hudson Yard buildings that bear a marked resemblance to Stark Tower from the Avengers.
New York was once famous for its oysters, grown in the harbor—a truly unbelievable number of them. Looking over the pier towards the still-glowing skyline of downtown Manhattan, I guess I’m not surprised they’d make an appropriate substrate for oyster growth.
Decaseconds 
