About sixty days before 9/11 my wife and I went back to her beloved city and on a whim went to the top of the World Trade Center. It was early evening and the once-innocent city was beginning to twinkle. We enjoyed panoramic views until dark. At the time it seemed a touristy thing to do but later events made the day unbearably poignant.
This shot, taken with an early model Canon digital camera, is a view of the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges.
12 Comments
No words can describe how I felt when I saw this photo. Thank you for posting it.
Thank you Katie
Fantastic photo!! thanks
Thanks Daniel!
This is a splendid photograph, Chris. The subject matter and point of view is especially moving. Compositionally, I am reminded of comments in Harold Mante’s book “The Photograph: composition and color design” where he observes that the way we examine a photograph is greatly influenced by the way we read, which in many languages is left to right. He observes that lines that proceed from the lower left corner of the image, directed upward, draw the eye into the photograph, where as lines down and to the right cast the eye out of the photograph. I have been trying to pay attention to that compositional element, and I think that may be one reason that this image is so appealing to me. Just a thought.
Hi Tim! Thanks so much for the thoughtful comment–that’s a great observation. As I’ve been trying to better myself as a photographer I’ve also been trying to pay attention to just such photographic elements. It also brings up an interesting idea for the picture of my daughter’s feet (Toes Pose); I wonder how it would look flipped so that the diagonals move from lower left to upper right. I’d have to remove the brand name from the shoe but that wouldn’t be too hard. I may try that as an exercise. Thanks again!
Toes Pose is a wonderful image, it will be hard to improve it noticeably although a fun exercise to look compare line orientations. Reading about composition is a bit of a struggle (especially Mante’s book which is excellent but a slog to actually read). The idea that there are elements in a photograph that absolutely influence how a viewer takes in a photograph, that are completely independent of whether or not they LIKE the image, is fascinating to me and has more to do with behavioral psychology than photography it seems. Studies of eye movements as different people explore the same picture show extreme similarity for example. Fascinating stuff. So lines that move the eye into a picture from left to right is familiar to people who read like we do, and so that arrangement may be more comfortable and soothing, but it actually may have nothing to do with whether they like the image more or less, necessarily. A soothing line arrangement may be an apparent improvement in one photo, but boring in another. This stuff is really fascinating for a total amateur like myself to read about. That a composition can very uniformly invoke an impression of “dynamic” or “soothing” or irritating or harmonious (whatever) in a majority of viewers, independent of cultural background and personal taste, is really interesting. If we know more about that stuff, point and line and shape and complementary colors, can we actually improve our photographs, make them more “likeable”? That is interesting. I hope so, because I spent like 30 bucks on the Mante’s book that reads like a German textbook, because I think it is a German textbook. Anyway, thoughts from other readers on actual usefulness of encorporating premeditated, formal compositional elements in their practice of photography would be interesting.
Very interesting stuff Tim. I can just hear my right brain screaming at my left brain, “CAN’T YOU JUST GIVE ME THIS ONE DAMN THING?” I can’t help it though, the thought that there may be a near-universal truth with respect to composition and human responses is something I’ve always found intriguing. I hope to hear other’s thoughts on this. Is it wise to break the image down into scientific niblets or are we deconstructing the art too much. Is it better to simply bask in the beauty of the entire cob. I think I’m hungry.
Beautifully done, classic New York. You should try some shots of the brooklyn bridge front and center – I know its been done to death but I bet you could make it stunning.
Thanks Mami–I’d love to take my wife back to New York. Hopefully soon!
Wow,I’m breathless!
Thanks Ale! We’re awfully glad we have the shots we took that night.