High Line to skyline

I had never been to New York before, so to me, the place was almost fictional. Does every first-time visitor experience this weird thought process? In some ways, NYC seemed utterly familiar, through hundreds - surely, thousands - of films and photographs. So, when I actually got there, walking its streets and staring up at its skyscrapers, it felt more surreal, as if I was playing a role in my own movie. Virtual and actual reality combined.

Obviously, I snapped away myself, hoping to bottle my own memories so they don't get lost among the New York images that belong to everyone. As regular Specs readers will know, I put my photography on the blog from time to time - whether it's the portraiture work I produce in collaboration with friends, or simply my personal record of trips and travels. I hope that visitors enjoy its occasional appearance as another spoke in the blog's overall music/art/culture wheel.

So this is the first of perhaps a couple of posts recalling our New York trip. Here, I've divided the shots into two groups.

High Line

I took this set of pictures across a couple of visits we made to the High Line, the remarkable elevated park - regenerated from disused rail tracks - above the west side of Manhattan. While the High Line gets busy, its leafy path feels like an oasis of sorts as the daily chaotic routine continues beneath it. The whole route offers surprising and captivating views of brand new, cutting-edge architecture bedding in alongside historic tenement buildings and warehouses - as I hope these pictures show.

("What do you mean, you don't like heights? You're a pigeon, Eddie.")

Skyline

It's impossible not to photograph it. It doesn't matter if millions of people have done it before, from exactly the same vantage points. (Perhaps some of you have a local view that you're drawn to, and like to snap. For example, if you're familiar with London, you may know Tower Bridge, an iconic landmark crossing the river Thames. From the nearby London Bridge, you get a classic view of it, which I can't help photographing more or less every time I see it. In NYC, whichever way I turned, I had that feeling intensified to what felt like the power of 100. I don't know how New Yorkers go anywhere or get anything done.)

We love a viewpoint, and took as many opportunities to survey the city as we could.

From the roof of the Metropolitan Museum of Art:

From a coach!

From the observation deck of the Empire State Building. (This was around 11pm to midnight. It's open to 2am.)

From the Staten Island Ferry:

From the 'Top of the Rock' - that is, the Rockefeller Centre observation deck:

 

To be continued...