Standard Hotel, Clouds, and Airplane. New York, New York. August 14, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
An airplane crosses a cloud-filled New York City sky above the Standard Hotel at the High Line Park in Chelsea.
This hotel straddling the High Line Elevated Park in New York City presents a striking appearance, especially when the right clouds are reflected in its glass-window surface. We were in the area on a summer evening when the sky was filled with interesting clouds, and by the time we finished walking to and then along the elevated path of the High Line park we had seen it from quite a few angles.
This was my first visit to New York City in a decade, and I have to say that coming to terms with it as a photographic subject is a tall task for someone trying to take in the whole thing for (not quite) the first time. I do a lot of street and urban photography, but usually in places with which I’m familiar – San Francisco is a short train ride from where I live, so I photograph there a lot. For me, it takes some time to get beyond the overwhelming first impressions and settle down and achieve a level of comfort with the place. There were days in New York when, despite being in the midst of tremendous numbers of photographic opportunities, I found it almost impossible to figure out what to shoot. And there were also certain times when “the light came on” and I made a lot of photographs, including this evening.
I need to go back…
G Dan Mitchell Photography
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“There were days in New York when, despite being in the midst of tremendous numbers of photographic opportunities, I found it almost impossible to figure out what to shoot. And there were also certain times when “the light came on” and I made a lot of photographs, including this evening.”
I know exactly what you mean. This is a problem I contend with because I live here. My comfort level has not found an equilibrium and I still often feel overwhelmed or that the shot is too obvious to take because I see it everyday. That’s compounded by the same route I take each day to work. Sometimes I do manage to find time to explore even the most familiar places a new though, and that’s when I am most thrilled to get my camera out.
That is an interesting comment, Ed. I, too, can understand that there are a number of issues that can make it difficult to “see” with clarity in a place like this. The obvious one, at least for me, is a combination of sensory overload and unfamiliarity with the rhythms of the place. There is so much to see that it becomes hard to pick out individual things. Also, for a person unaccustomed to NYC it can be tricky to figure out what is “real New York” and what is tourist New York.
Of course, I am the sort of photography to some extent who likes to really get to know a particular place or subject, returning to it often to try to see and understand it in all its variety. Guess that means I need to return to New York sooner!
Dan