I have for some time now been photographing almost daily from my north facing window which looks out on a series of older office and industrial buildings just north and east of my Chelsea vantage point. The buildings slope upwards in layers which create a gradual delineation of foreground, middle ground, and towering commandingly in the background is the imposing presence of Manhattan's Empire State building. At different times of day, seasons and light conditions the familiar scene has almost an infinite capacity for change and visual wonder. A friend of mine calls this "traveling without moving."
I often think of the experience watching and photographing these varying conditions as observing a mountain range or the sky changing in the american west......where subtle differences start to reveal themselves over time and steady and continued observation yields surprising rewards. Only here the low lying buildings just east of 8th Avenue are my foothills, the brown and grey industrial offices of the flower and garment districts, my mountains, and the Empire State building, a distant peak with the ability to rival McKinley, Kilamanjaro or Fuji with its many moods and faces. The street immediately north of my window, West 24th Street is also one of the few curving roads in Manhattan, and in it's serpentine flow one can easily see a river below the foothills.
I enjoy this mental game and take great pleasure in each day's discovery of this visually fertile terrain.
When I was a teenager just beginning to play with a camera as a serious hobby, one of the first photography books I was given was Ruth Orkin's, "A World through my Window." Years later when I actually met Ruth and had a chance to peak through her famous window, I remember being in awe by the photographer's ability to capture and make apparent that which unfolds around, and passes by us each and every moment. A visual language which has the ability to uplift and inspire even through seeing the mundane in new ways. Perhaps I am remembering that feeling a bit with each of these photos.
