Times Square re:Imagined

A little over a decade ago I went to New York for work. I had just gotten hooked on photography, and knew very little about manual camera operation. I brought my new-to-me Sony Alpha A100 that still used the Minolta lens mount from their recent corporate acquisition. I had a few lenses around the house from my late father’s Minolta camera kit, so everything worked together.

When I arrived in New York, I was astonished at the accuracy with which the city was depicted on the television shows depicted there. Everything from the color of the walls on the subway to the tall, endless expanse of buildings. Having Minneapolis as my reference point, NYC’s expanse of towers in each direction, seemingly following the curvature of the Earth, blew my mind. All I could do was look up – something I was warned against doing.

When I found free time at lunch, or after work in the evening, I disappeared into Times Square and wandered. Everything you’ve heard about NYC is true. It was a great experience.

The images in this gallery show the beginning of my photography journey. I did not want snapshots, or typical vacation photos. I wanted the images I created to tell the story of my visit. I think they actually do a good job of illustrating both my experience and skillset. I don’t think I could recreate these images as I have in this set with my current camera. There are so many rules broken that some of the images are chaotic in nature – which was exactly my experience at the time.

I chose muted tones and warm accents to capture a taxi-rich, high-focus, environment. There’s so much distraction and demand for your attention, you can’t possibly take it all in to process. The only defense for this assault is to only take in features of a scene, keying off the rhythm and flow of an area.

For me, these images, and their re:Imagined processing convey exactly how I felt in the environment.