Mike Noble Photography: Back to the Big Apple

This past Friday I took a second trip to NYC to spend the day making photographs. This is the second of what I think will become and annual event for me. New York has always had a fascination for photographers. There is so much to photograph. Whether it is the architecture, the people, or the general "hustle and flow" of the city, it all makes for great images.

This year I took along my friend and long time tennis partner, Dave Hemberger. He had just purchased a new prosumer camera, ostensibly for his wife, and was eager to try it out in Manhattan. We hit most of the same areas as last year's trip. We were in and around Times Square and traveled uptown and down, east side and west, as time permitted. We hit most of the attractions in the area including Rockefeller Center, Saint Patrick's Cathedral, Broadway, and the New York Public library among others. And Dave, a musician, got to try out some new trumpets at Sam Ash's store on 48th street.

The weather kept changing. The forecast was for mostly sunny skies but we found that the weather would change from sunny to overcast in a very short time and the temps and wind made it a bit chilly. However, the changing weather also made for many opportunities to shoot in different light. A bit challenging but the results were great.

I was struck by the amount of animated signage that is in and around Times Square. There was a lot last year but it has certainly increased since then. It reminded me a lot of Ridley Scott's classic sci-fi movie, Blade Runner. If it was raining and at night, it would have been hard to distinguish between the movie and reality. I find the amount of these signs to be disorienting. You have giant heads talking to you from fifty above you and whole sides of buildings constantly changing with seemingly never ending advertising. Next year, I think I will head downtown to Greenwich Village, or the financial district.

The best thing to photograph in the city, of course, is the people. And there were a lot of them. The city (Manhattan is always "the city" to New Yorkers) is teeming with people. I felt like asking why they weren't inside at work! Of course, there were a lot of tourists who gravitate to Broadway and the aforementioned attractions nearby. But there was no respite from the flow of humanity moving along the sidewalks. You felt like you were constantly being buffeted and pummeled about. I was born and raised in New York, moving to Pennsylvania in 1974. But I don't remember this much human congestion in Manhattan on a weekday before any holidays.