Monday, January 29

2007 Award Winner: Limit-less

Note: Accepted as one of theworld's finest Urban Images of 2007 for Canon POTN Book to be published in the Fall of 2008.

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The cabs in this image look as if they are skittering about a living room. Everything seems to be reduced to scale. Yet, NYC is beyond any scale. There are two cities in the U.S. that have such a massive presence that it's impossible to back away far enough to capture them with even the widest lens. Every image seems to grab just a detail. The first is this place, the other is Vegas. The difference is that you can dash quickly to Vegas's city limits. Here, there are no limits - if y'know what I'm sayin'?
And yes, this is a rather straight wide-angle shot (about 10mm). Until January 20, the city was increasingly windy and frigid. On January 23, the winds and arctic weather blew back. But for just two days, there was this hole in winter's severity... everywhere except up there... in the sky.

3 comments:

Andreas said...

Nice street scene and one image more in a long line of images where I really would like to see the originals.

It's amazing what you get out of images. For instance this impossible sky. I keep asking myself, what did you do to the sky? Was it simply white? Have you painted a new one in? If so, why did you shoot the image in the first place? Did you already plan to replace the sky?

It certainly looks like that, but on the other hand, it does not matter at all. It simply works.

Ted said...

Nope, this was the sky enhanced a hair in PP with curves while the buildings were masked back. No particularly big deal. Then I just created an additional adujustment layer to equally bring up the realtive contrasts in the entire image. Light on stormy days can be pleasantly playful. Remember, the buildings in the cross street to the left were in a canyon created by equally impressive buildings off frame to the left. Those structures alternatively held back and burnt in light upon the scene as you see it here.

Andreas said...

Doesn't look so much like a hair, more like a rope :)

Incredibly effective, this canal of light in the middle. It looks almost dangerous.