Bryant Park: One block, one park, many personalities
One block, one park, many personalities
Home to fashionistas, bookworms, figure skaters, weddings, or passionate moviegoers, Bryant Park is a melting plot attracting people of all ages, interests, nationalities, and countries. During the first two weeks of September, paparazzi, journalists, and publicists all crowd around the famous white tents trying to get a glimpse of the celebrities and fashion icons attending New York Fashion Week, one of the four major fashion weeks in the fashion industry. Fans and tourists swarm the white tents awe hoping to get a glance of prestigious fashion designers in this highly coveted and exclusive by invitation only event. Several weeks later, these block long tents are removed, and almost magically an ice rink appears where children and adults fill the rink, skating uniformly in a counter-clock-wise direction. Visit during the summer months, and you won’t see an inch of the great lawn as spectators enjoy a nice picnic while watching musical performances or the favorite, HBO/Bryant Park Summer Film Festival. As a result, it seemed only fitting to take all my pictures at Bryant Park; not only one of my favorite places in New York City, but also a dynamic place full of excitement, diversity, literally evolving with each season.
I was very frustrated when it came to picking a theme for our photography project. I had no idea what or who to take pictures of, nor did I know how I could include the theme of cultural encounter. However, my adventure to Bryant Park, as always, surpassed my expectations.
As I walked to Bryant Park, I realized it was the perfect place for my project. I first took a lap around the block, marveling and observing everything and everyone around me. I then walked across the New York Public Library, and went to the ice rink at the center of the park, where I allocated an ample amount of time. Following Jeff Mermelstein’s advice, I started snapping images of bystanders, figure skaters, newsstands, trees, and buildings – everything that I encountered in my path. At the ice rink I studied the various people tripping, skating, pretending to skate but really gripping the side of the rink, laughing, and twisting into odd positions as they braced their falls. I surveyed their faces and noticed that each individual had a different reaction and facial expression. Instantly, I realized my theme would be “one block, one park, many personalities.”
Despite shooting figures of all shapes, sizes, ages, and nationalities, I found that my most interesting figures were children and young adults. They weren’t afraid to expose their naïveté and curiosity, and I strived to capture them in their uninhibited essence. By catching them in the midst of their actions, I was able to get candid pictures, where each figure’s true personality shone through. For example, in the image titled, “Narcissus, is that you?” we see a little boy fascinated and fixated on a fountain pond. While a murky and brown tinted pond overflowing with discolored autumn leaves is an ugly sight to many, the boy’s intense focus and engagement seems to indicate that he is looking at something beautiful, deserving of all his attention. Although there were hundreds of people in the park, he wasn’t distracted or interested in anything else. Despite standing a few feet away from him, I felt invisible as he completely disregarded my presence. Thus, his interest and curiosity overpowered everything else in the park, and that is what I wanted to capture.
Another one of Jeff Mermelstein’s suggestions that I found very useful was taking pictures without looking through the viewfinder. In the image titled “Patiently Waiting and Watching,” I held my Sony Cybershot digital camera at my knees and clicked on the shutter. After uploading all my pictures, I realized that by luck I had snapped the two figures sitting in the middle of the sidewalk centered in the frame. I also wanted the focus to be on those two figures, since the pedestrians, car, garbage bags, and even leaves in the frame appear to be in motion and slightly blurry. Seeing these two figures static in such a dynamic scene captured my interest, and made me wonder why they were sitting there. I also tried to illustrate images in various and unconventional angles, which is seen in the image “Holding on for Dear Life.” To achieve this angle, I sneakily put my arm completely over the edge of the rink stretching my arm as close as I could to the ice. As a result, I was level with this three-foot boy, who was struggling to stand upright like a newborn deer stumbling over its first steps. My favorite image was perhaps the one I captured with pure luck. Looking out onto the rink, laughing at both adults and children discombobulated on the fresh ice, I couldn’t help but notice the young girl next to me. Like energetic toddlers, she was laughing and talking three-year old jibberish as her parents were conversing. I was fixated on her jubilant and adorable character, and wanted to take a picture of her. However, her parents were standing a few feet away, and I didn’t want to blatantly photograph her in fear of their reaction. Therefore, I put the camera under my right elbow and looked up at the surrounding buildings to my left. I attempted to give the illusion that I was simply holding my camera, while I was actually pressing the shutter several times. When I came home, I discovered I had captured her in two very distinct and contradicting poses. In one she is innocently staring out into the ice, while in the next she is grabbing her older brother’s face with a devious smile. This put a smile on my face as she exposed her unpredictable personality and power, bravely unlocking her seat belt and profoundly standing on her carriage.
Soon after, I wasn’t worried about what others were thinking, and casually took pictures of random people on the rink. Whenever someone was staring at me, as if I were caught red handed, I would simply turn in another direction taking pictures of other objects like a typical tourist. Perhaps the best part of New York City is that nothing is weird, nothing is out of the ordinary. In some places, people would aggressively attack you verbally and possibly physically. However, I felt free and comfortable, which was evident as I took over three hundred pictures in a span of two hours. I was the artist, my camera was my brush, and Bryant Park was my muse.
Finally, I decided to put all my images in black and white; some of the colors were very distracting and took the attention away from my message. The black and white color added an increased intensity and deeper meaning to my images.
After browsing through my images later that night I was satisfied with the result. In a 9.603-acre park stretching a full block, I was able to encompass a diverse crowd exhibiting an entire spectrum of emotions. Perhaps there are only a few places where you can capture people in their true vulnerable states, and Bryant Park was just the place. Whether they are struggling but determined to stand upright, or laughing at their clumsiness, as they lay sprawled out on the cold ice, there was a beauty in each figure’s face and reaction, and that is exactly what I wanted to showcase.
