freedom tower – The Graceful Image http://thegracefulimage.com Photography by Zev Steinhardt Wed, 01 Jan 2020 20:52:16 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.13 New York City Patterns http://thegracefulimage.com/new-york-city-patterns/ Thu, 03 Mar 2016 14:17:08 +0000 http://thegracefulimage.com/?p=725 This past week’s theme for 52Frames was “Patterns.”  I took a day and wandered about downtown Manhattan, looking for patterns and found them everywhere.  Skyscraper windows make great patterns.  Cobblestones on sidewalks.  Tiles in the subway.  Arches, lights, benches, monuments… all of which can produce amazing patterns.

In the end, I narrowed my choices down to two pictures.

The first, titled “Freedom’s Arrow” is a shot taken from the base of the new One World Trade Center in downtown Manhattan.  I stood at the base of the tower and simply pointed my camera up.  This was the result:

Freedom's Arrow

 

The other shot that I liked was one that I took from the Brooklyn Bridge.  There are lots of things to focus on while on the bridge, but I was out looking for patterns and found something that appealed to me:

20150222_NYC-186_webI like this shot because of the repeating patterns and the leading lines that lead you straight to the center portion of the arches and the flag.

In the end, I chose the tower picture.  I like the simplicity of it and the blue of the sky and the tower windows.

What do you think?  Did I make the right choice?  Or should I have gone with the bridge shot?

Zev

]]> NYC Skyine: A Majesty of Glass and Steel http://thegracefulimage.com/nyc-skyline-majesty-of-glass-and-steel/ Mon, 29 Sep 2014 16:42:45 +0000 http://thegracefulimage.com/?p=388 When it comes to non-natural sights, very few are as majestic to behold as the New York City skyline.  It’s not without good reason that it has been an iconic image of New York (and America in general).  The soaring towers reach up to the sky, in an arrangement of beauty.  It’s one of my favorite things to photograph.

The only thing that is better than an image of the New York skyline is a panorama of that same skyline.  If there is a non-natural subject that is tailor-made for panoramic images, it’s this collection of buildings.

I was on a photo walk this past spring, which led us to the Brooklyn Bridge Park.  Most of the participants didn’t bring along a tripod (seriously, who brings along a tripod to a photo walk?), but I did, in the hopes that I’d be able to take some panoramas and sunset pictures by the park at the end of the day.   Fortunately, I was able to put it to good use when I captured this panorama at sunset, which made the whole day of schlepping the tripod around worth it.

NYC-Skyline-&-Brooklyn-Bridge  The bridge on the right side of the image is the Brooklyn Bridge, which connects Brooklyn to Manhattan.  I’ve walked over that bridge many times.  When I used to work downtown, I often walked over it and back during my lunch break.  The tall building with the antenna just right of center is the new 1 World Trade Center (aka The Freedom Tower).

Other cities have plenty of things going for them.  Paris has its famous Tower.  Seattle is rightly proud of its Space Needle.  Jerusalem, Rome, Constantinople, Damascus and others have histories so long that it’s impossible to think of New York as anything but a babe of a city compared to them, even after four centuries.  But the New York skyline is unique.  It’s one of the things that define the city and has no equal throughout the world.

Zev

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