streetwalker part 4 - transportation
New York City streets have a life of their own, a hive of movement and activity. From the early morning rush to the late-night din, the city never sleeps. It would be a sin to visit the city and not attempt to harness its unique vibe.
My earlier episodes of the ‘streetwalker’ series concentrated on explorations in capturing the essence of the human form, refining my technique as I improved my understanding of the outcomes. This led to expanding the boundaries further, by including more of the environment to provide context and story.
Driven by earlier successes, this final episode chronicles an attempt to explore the limitations by expanding the subject matter. Given New York's fame for iconic yellow taxi cabs and subway trains, I thought highlighting such moving subjects might provide an interesting challenge.
However, it soon became apparent that the use of this particular technique is not really suited to moving vehicles. Previous wins had been achieved when camera and subject were in sync with their movements, but dealing with faster-moving vehicles presented a substantial hurdle that proved difficult to overcome.
Numerous attempts were made to capture the slowest of moving vehicles (whilst not getting run over….). At the end of the day the only reasonable results came from the use of a typical panning motion as the shutter was open, with outcomes lacking the interest I had witnessed earlier.
Given these frustrations, I decided to expand my ‘transportation’ theme to harness the flow of the public and the transit systems they rely on to move around the city. This freedom in scope allowed for far more opportunities as I find mass human interactions rarely disappoint.
This new goal also produced a greater level of satisfaction, stemming from an increase in time spent observing the movement of the traveling public and capturing the stories laid out in front of me.
While this slice of the series may be the least successful in terms of fulfilling my original ‘transportation’ challenge, I believe it effectively conveys the hustle and bustle of the New York transit system, and I'm more than satisfied with the results.
Below is a sample of images that encapsulate the theme, including those that exhibit the ebb and flow of activity surrounding the public transit systems. Please open images to view full size - I hope they adequately convey the essence of my New York experience.
Feedback and any questions you may have are appreciated and can be fed back via the Comments section below.
Click on images to open in the intended format.
