Photographer’s Bite of an Apple

NY MUD photo shoot impressions by Peter Giodani, photographer

New York is a city of déjà vu, familiar streets, buildings, hot dog stands, bridges, NYPD, metallic subway trains, and the lady with a torch. It's hard to put down the camera for a minute in this city. Perhaps that’s because I've seen its moments numerous times through the frame of a screen and it's hard to perceive it otherwise. Or maybe it’s just because this city is painfully photogenic.

My fi rst thought for the MUD photo shoot was the rooftop. Where else can you fully embrace the metropolis cliché? What other shot can be more iconic than a landscape of THE concrete jungle in black and white? I was not wrong, but as days passed I realized the obvious. As you step down from the towering high ground of monumental views, you get overwhelmed by the streets and the silver lining that ties the elements together.

At 2 p.m. on a sunny day you can fi nd yourself on a crossroad of sunbeams from a few different directions. The refl ection from a skyscraper mixes with the one from a shopping window, while a metal facade gives a silver bounce from a side. As you watch pedestrians strolling carefree through this kaleidoscope of light and shadows, you can't escape the thought that you are looking at an effect of a professional movie set. The game of light renders the vast city into its full 3D potential.

Not just an urban landscape, New York is a stage for all the extra and ordinary individuals that form the wonderful cacophony of its dwellers. NYC feels like a set managed by the best scenographers, light technicians, stylists, and cast managers. With this mixture of unprecedented content and form, you can never expect what combination awaits you around the next corner.

I was never too keen on street photography. On some level I always found it a bit boring in its esthetics. Obviously I hadn't been to New York. •