I was in NYC over the weekend, and it was rejuvenating. I usually have to sit on my photos for a bit and let them digest, but this one slipped out, and actually, I’m not in love with it like I thought I would be. I usually open up Lightroom, mess with a few settings, try a dozen crops and filters, undo all the changes, and close the program without anything to show for my time. This happens 3 or 4 times before anything meaningful starts to materialize and I know what I want out of a photo. I always have a growing handful of photos that I’ve flagged for later processing, that I assume I’ll get to once I look at the photo enough and finally figure out how to proceed with it.
So anyway, this is from the observation deck of the Rockefeller Center on Saturday morning, when it was surprisingly not that cold and relatively empty. I like the bricks, but I’m not really sure what the focus of the image is. My eyes keep getting drawn to the North-South markings, and the skyline is almost too busy. Maybe I should have gone for a landscape shot, but I know it wasn’t possible because there were too many people on the observation deck and it would have messed with the quiet emptyness of scene. The sky is pretty boring, and I probably could have cropped it out, but I didn’t like the proportions. Either way, I need to let my other shots from the weekend churn in my head a bit before I post more.
My view of New York City itself changed a bit over the weekend too. I take back my previously held belief that it’s a great city but I couldn’t live there. I could definitely live there. Sure, I’d miss some outdoorsy stuff, but it just seems like a place where important things happen. Holland is the opposite.