Tag Archives: hudson

Under the Highway

Under the Highway
“Under the Highway” — The steel structure supporting NY 9A along the west side of Manhattan.

This photograph comes from one of our frequent August visits to New York City. New Yorkers reading this are perhaps shaking their heads and wondering about my sanity. There is a reason that people who live there take there vacations in August — heat, humidity, thunderstorms, and all the rest. But over the years we have regularly made August visits — in the early days because that is when I wasn’t teaching, but now out of (arguably perverse?) habit.

But this August visit, as I recall, was relatively pleasant. It certainly was on this day as we walked from our hotel down to the Hudson River, passing beneath this remarkable structure as we approached a riverside park. This supports the highway running down the west side of the city and, I think, it is still more attractive than modern concrete construction that is used today for such things.


G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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Pier 57, Crane Barge

Pier 57, Crane Barge
A crane barge docked next to Pier 57, Manhattan.

Pier 57, Crane Barge. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.

A crane barge docked next to Pier 57, Manhattan.

Manhattan’s Hudson River waterfront fascinates me. It is a busy place with lots of vehicle traffic, but many facilities along the shore have been and are being transformed. Old piers fall into ruin, others are converted to new purposes. New structures extend the city over the water. I made this photograph at one of those new places, the “Little Island.” It seems to grow organically from the water, and it houses a busy little park with enough elevation to provide good views of the surroundings.

This photograph looks up the shoreline to Pier 57, a renovated structure that is now a commercial space and which includes its own park. The relationship between the building’s green paint and the red-orange color of the crane caught my attention, as did the colorful reflection in the water just beyond the old pilings.


G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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Afternoon Light, Hudson River Shoreline

Afternoon Light, Hudson River Shoreline
Afternoon light on buildings of Lower Manhattan along the Hudson River.

Afternoon Light, Hudson River Shoreline. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.

Afternoon light on buildings of Lower Manhattan along the Hudson River.

By the time we got here we were starting to run out of energy. We had walked from west of Central Park in the 70s, wandering down through Hudson Yards, then following the High Line Park to its end at the Whitney Museum. From there we walked west toward the Hudson River, for reasons that I no longer remember. (Walking east and catching a subway train back toward our hotel might have been the more logical choice!)

We soon spotted the “Little Island,” an artificial island and park in the Hudson connected to the shore by a short walkway. This spot provides excellent views since it is both elevated and located just offshore, which opens the panorama along the waterfront. Here I’m looking south toward Lower Manhattan and a veritable Patagonia of urban peaks, topped by the World Trade Center Building.


G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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Hudson Yards Towers

Hudson Yards Towers
A cluster of tall urban towers at the Hudson Yards complex, Manhattan.

Hudson Yards Towers. © Copyright 2023 G Dan Mitchell.

A cluster of tall urban towers at the Hudson Yards complex, Manhattan.

There is a phenomenal range of photographic subjects in New York City: the natural scenes in Central Park, street life, and architecture old and new. For reasons relating to the season, our location in Manhattan, and more I ended up making quite a few “natural landscape” images in Central Park. But we did spend time elsewhere, too, including on a long walk that took us through the Hudson Yards development. My feelings about the place are complicated, for reasons I won’t go into here, but it does present some interesting architectural forms, including these buildings with reflecting glass surfaces.

I went with black and white in this rendition since I was more interested in the shapes and lines than in presenting of the supposed reality of the place. (The underlying image is full of blue tones and has much less contrast.) I’ve long been fascinated by how malleable monochrome images are in post — we can push and pull them in all sorts of ways that would be far too extreme in most cases with color.


G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.

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Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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