Pictures in the City...

Conor Oberst ~ NYC - Gone, Gone
buy Conor Oberst (2008)
One of twelve reasons you should buy his album.

Shippin' up to The Big Apple in the morning to visit my sister for Thanksgiving. i'll be there through the weekend, and may or may not get a post up. i have a NYC Mixtape planned - it has some songs that simply reference the city, but maybe i'll pick up a few others that capture the mood while i'm there.

New York is an amazing place anytime, but the holiday season brings out a different, festive feeling noticeable in every corner of the city. My first trip to New York was during Christmas, so maybe that's why it's memorable to me. i feel like i'm in another country when i'm there. Methods of travel, interaction with people, and simply living life are all completely different in a city of its magnitude. i've grown up around Houston, a very large city in its own right, but NY is a different type of big. Space is not only limited, it's maxed out. Apartments are tiny, bathrooms are cramped, even refrigerators are smaller. But somehow these shrunken elements come together to create a place larger than its own legend. A place rich in culture and diversity. A place teeming with activity 24/7. A place at once historic and completely modern.

Everywhere you look in NY, especially for someone from Texas, is something you've never seen before. That's why it's one of the coolest places on the planet to take pictures. i took this one on a trip there in '06 and up until a month ago, some form of it was used as the header picture for This Mornin'... Vinyl Mania was a record store just 4 doors down from my sister's apartment. She told me earlier this year that it went out of business and the sign was gone. i was really hoping to take a newer photo of the storefront with a better camera, but that may never happen now. NYC offers so many amazing things to snap photos of, i'll find something else to fill the void. Upon my last trip, i was armed with only my cell phone camera and although the picture quality was low, you could get some really interesting shots, especially in the dark. It was that trip, and many of those photo opportunities, that got me turned on to photography. Greasy streets and grungy gutters can sparkle with beauty when the streetlights hit them just right. Passing headlights can reveal the elegance behind layers of fliers and graffiti on a chained storefront. The borough skylines are speckled with facades you swear you've seen on TV before.

Here's a few of those pictures from last trip:



















We don't have much planned except eating turkey, so i'm sure i'll have some free time to roam the city and people watch. Nowhere else would that sound so interesting.
---------

On a related note, check out Neal Casal's photography page, especially the NY pictures. They show how something so simple can become ART if the conditions and treatment are right.