(Catalogue # 021008-01-08)
(Click on image to zoom in…)
I like to go to really famous, impressive, places to try and capture them, or create an impression of them, in an artistic and hopefully unique way. I don’t always succeed! I went to New York at the end of September 2002 on such an artistic trip. I love the hustle and bustle of Times Square and was staying only a block away from it – as I had done on a previous trip five years earlier. The image I came up with took many days of contemplation and for a long while I was pessimistic that I would fail in my quest…
The two main roads, 7th Avenue and Broadway, run roughly from north to south. There is only a short time window, around about noon, when the sun shines straight down both streets – rather than leaving one side in hard shadow. Time… Time… Moreover, the angle of the sun shining on the buildings is better in the Autumn and Spring – where it is neither too high nor too low at noon. Time… Time…
I was running out of time – nearing the end of my trip but with no inspiration about how to capture this place…
On my penultimate day at noon in Manhattan the light was terrific. The yellow cabs, the rivulets of multi-coloured people, the sheer rock faces of the buildings, the brilliantly lit signs… What is the shot? What is Times Square? I pondered and pondered. Time was running out… The light won’t last…
Hoards of random purposeful people, impatient busy cars, domineering buses, enticing alluring shops, mesmerizing ingenious signs, agitated horns, blinding glare, confusing reflections, killing fumes, incessant humming engines, occasional screeching breaks. I was being bombarded with Times Square but no ideas how to capture it. Then, all of a sudden, and quite by accident – I looked up – directly above me, and I saw this amazing sight: a beautiful tranquil azure blue sky, with brilliantly bright titanium white cloud slowly drifting northwards. I found a bare patch of pavement and lay down on the ground looking skywards. All of a sudden everything was perfectly serenely quiet, and I was transformed into a new timeless silent dimension.
What a transformation! Horizontally it was a torrid river of humanity: noise, zillions of people from everywhere – going everywhere, attention-grabbing economic gimmicks, control, dirt, pollution, unbelievable complexity. Here, in Times Square, it was as if three dimensions were squashed into two: everything happens on street level! Of course! The fourth dimension, time, is upwards… One minute I was in those rapids and the next I had broken free from the surface water tension – like a caddis fly emerging as an underwater grub and transformed into a free-flying insect…
The sun was nearly at the perfect angle – it had just a few minutes to go to catch both sides of the parallel buildings equally. This was central to the shot. I waited for the perfect moment, during which time a typically un-shy American asked “…Hey, what-ja doing?” (This was one of many exchanges I had with passers-by that day.) I told him and he looked up – at an angle he probably wasn’t used to. His expression was at first strained and squinting, and then an oh-I-see smile…
For me the picture works for a number of reasons – some of which I can take credit for and some is just good old-fashioned luck – and, believe me, the best shots need some luck. I love the azure blue of the sky and the cold Arctic white of the cloud – and what a deliciously bright glacial white it is! But I love that area in the middle where the blue intermingles softly with the white. This just seems to epitomize the cosmopolitan nature of what’s happening at street level – different races coming together…
I have rendered the buildings in a perfect square – which says something to me about time – how regular it is. All the vertical parallel lines of the buildings in their infinite perspective converge perfectly in the middle of the picture. The whole scene could be a clock face without hands. Time, like the hustle and bustle of the square, has momentarily paused.
Just think, if you will, how this landscape will have changed over time. Not so long ago the same shot could have had the same sky with trees receding in perspective in place of the buildings…
The time theme crops up in a number of unexpected ways. The clock on the building is very apt and very, very, lucky! The street lamp is off, because it is not time for it to be on. The position of the sun is very time critical – illuminating both sides of the street rather than casting one side into shadow. This is similar to the precise orientation of ancient megaliths like Stonehenge or the many amazing constructions in the Peruvian landscape and buildings – to cast light on to some sacred spot on just a few days at first or last light at the summer or winter solstices.
The shot is an antithesis of what Times Square is all about. I didn’t (and generally don’t) want to capture what most people do. Times Square is one of the busiest places in the world, and one of the most photographed. I wanted to do something completely different… This is possibly the least you could portray about Times Square and it still be recognizable… Less is sometimes more… Minimalism is sometime maximalism…
Cambridge, England 28/12/2002