In Autumn 2015 I travelled to America to see my best friend, who had moved to Pitsburgh about 6 months earlier. My husband and I are absolutely not city people but decided that New York was one of those places that you should see if given the opportunity. So, at the end of our stay, the 3 of us travelled to the city that never sleeps for a long weekend.
At this point I was only a couple of months into my film photography experience and this only my second roll through my Pentax ME Super. I had never shot Kodak Gold and with no research or knowledge of what the colour rendition would be, I packed it.
Needless to say, if you don’t really like the hustle and bustle of a city, you won’t like New York. I found it smelly, noisy, crowded and the majority of the people just rude. Yes, there are certain aspects I’d like to go back and explore further but I’m not in any hurry. When I got my negatives and scans back from the lab I was floored by the results. What I had were images which completely and fully delivered my experience of New York. The colour rendition, exposure, composition just all came together in such a perfect way.
It’s hard for me to be unbiased in my judgement of these images, over whether they are good or not, because viewing them transports me back. It’s so personal in a way unlike any other images I have ever taken. These first 3 images sum up my experience completely, shot on the fly as we were walking around.
These next shots were taken on our last day. We had decided to visit the 9/11 memorial and museum (not a good idea before the flight home!). I love how Kodak Gold has captured the autumnal colours of the trees and provides almost a twinkle from the memorial fountain. It was an experience that felt so huge, just to be there, and these images take me back to that almost out of body experience that I had whilst there.
I hope you enjoyed these images. I’m still learning and you can follow my work through my learning log and instagram.
Fantastic images!!
Thank you!!
Hi Holly,
“Needless to say, if you don’t really like the hustle and bustle of a city, you won’t like New York. I found it smelly, noisy, crowded and the majority of the people just rude.” How does one reply to this? I’ve found residents of London to be dismissive and condescending, Parisians to outright ignore my family. Parts of Belfast were hostile because of my last name (Italian) and people made the assumption that I must be Catholic (I am.)
Yet, I love London and it’s energy, Paris for it’s history and the many photographers who helped shape my style of shooting, Belfast because it played an important role in the maternal (Irish) side of my family.
I’m not a resident of NYC, but I can get there is under two hours by train. I look for the quiet moments out of the noise, the slice of humanity in the crowd, a funny juxtaposition of inanimate objects. My visual sense is on high alert…I always come back with something I’m happy with.
It’s too bad the nibble of the Big Apple you tasted had a worm in it. Return someday and take another bite…you just might miss the worm.
Lovely words. And yes, certainly the architecture draws me back but it’s a lot of money from where I am so unlikely that I’ll return any time soon. I used to be one of the London commuters and resented every minute of every commute but loved it when I was able to find a moment to explore somewhere quiet 🙂
I really enjoyed these images, Holly! Thanks for sharing them and your story.
Thank you!
Thank you for the lovely comment!
Keep shooting! Nice pictures and lovely compositions.
Thank you for the words of encouragement!
Well done! Perfect
Perfect shots! Well done
I love the photos and the write up of the experience of your visit to Manhattan. I love the images.
One quibble. As someone who used to live in New York City and currently works on Wall Stree, could you please add the word “City”. The entire state is called New York and you only visited one part of it, New York City, specifically Manhattan island whose cultural and physical landscape is nothing at all like the rest of the state.
Very true! And thanks for pointing that out – if I were to return some day I would like to see some of the other parts of New York!
Last time i was home in NY was 1995.
Your second pic triggered a memory of a very distinctive NY smell. ( We arived mid summer )
thankyou 🙂
Well that’s fantastic because that means these pictures are evocative for others too! Thanks for the comment!