360 New York [antikvár]

During my early days as a photographer, I once stuck a strip of prints together to produce a view of the river in my hometoviin. It w/as my first, crude attempt to produce a 360° image, and it was a w/orld away from today's digital technology, which makes producing a photograph of this l(ind possible. A good deal of the scenes I'm commissioned to photograph involve the landscape, the built environment, and the way people interact with them. It often occurs to me that it is a pity to select a chosen crop to shoot, when the entire view that surrounds me is more interesting. 360° images are a very "honest" form of photography: you experience the whole atmosphere, the whole space, the whole landscape, so why not shoot it in that way? For both worl< and pleasure I have been a regular visitor to New York for many years, and it is clear to me that it is the perfect city for this method of photography it is a city of sensory overload. Wherever you are in this remarkable metropolis, you are presented with an incredible visual experience, whether it is the clash of water and sky, the combination of glass and steel, or the chaotic sidewalks overflowing with people from all backgrounds and stores bursting with goods. It is a city of extremes—of intense light and deep shadow, scorching hot in the summer and icy cold in the winter, where acres of concrete fight for space with acres of outstanding green spaces. Some of the world's most beautiful architecture can be found on the island of Manhattan, from early twentieth-century experiments with skyscrapers, through 1930s Art Deco elegance, to the stark glass simplicity of the more recent buildings. If it can be built, it has been built in New York. It is impossible to experience New York today without the memory of September 11, 2001. The city and its inhabitants responded to the tragedy at the World Trade Center with strength and compassion, and I have no doubt that whatever structure eventually grows from Ground Zero it will be both sensitive and iconic. The sequence of images in this book commences in New York Harbor on the deck of the sedately paced Staten Island Ferry, which travels past America's famous green copper-clad icon—the Statue of Liberty. We then move on to Brooklyn, with its old fairground rides and famous Boardwalk at Coney Island and loft apartments close to the East River. Crossing Brooklyn Bridge, we come to the southern tip of Manhattan, where we become aware of the frantic pace of New York's financial district. IVloving north through the streets of Greenwich Village, SoHo, and Chelsea, we come to the towers of Midtown, dominated by the Empire State and Chrysler buildings. The journey continues uptown, through Times Square and the fashionable retail area of Fifth Avenue before we end our journey in the peace and tranquility of Central Park. 360° NEW YORK also gets beneath the surface of the city, visiting some of the less familiar places that produce its special atmosphere—a twenty-four-hour diner that serves an all-American breakfast, a firehouse that's a home away from home, a dog-grooming salon that caters to the lucky few of the city's eight-million canines, shops that sell everything from dinosaur teeth to custom-built motorcycles It's this remarkable diversity that makes New York unique, especially when viewed in 360°. ¦ r' !•!« iV'- |i,l , ¦ !'¦ , ¦ I . ¦ I • I I I