From Greenery to Concrete
Westchester, New York: A major suburb just north of the Bronx. This is the area I was born and raised in. It’s your typical suburbia you see depicted on shows and films: It’s quiet, extremely mundane, and surrounded by numerous of trees and other natural scenery. Transitioning from a quiet and uneventful environment to the city known for its inherent fast-paced drive and towering buildings with brilliant lights was the experience that I have been craving my entire life. Seen through these photos, I attempted to express such a transition by taking different photographs of the aspects of New York City that I have now inherited and adapted to.
The biggest change I’ve noticed was the visual transition from originally seeing trees and hills all around me to towering buildings and brilliant architecture. This lead me to taking several photos of New York City’s skyscrapers and ranging styles of architecture. The first photo shows the expanse of downtown New York City. I took a day trip to the New Museum and observed this open view of the literal “concrete jungle.” Observing the city from the ground is a completely different outlook than seeing it from above. While we’re below, at least for me, the city didn’t seem that big, but as I walked around the rooftop, I took in the full capacity of how ranging and almost overwhelming the city really was. It was both breathtaking and nerve-wracking at the same time. It was then that I took Sontag’s ideas of “reality” from her text “On Photography” into mind. Seeing the city from above seemed almost fantasy-like and unreal, while experiencing the city from the ground was easier to take in the capacity of the building’s heights and the people around me. These different visual perspectives truly made me consider the different realities that I see every day. This picture also particularly draws upon Barthes’ concepts of studium and punctum from his excerpt from “Camera Lucida”. The original attraction, studium, was the overall beauty of the landscape. Then, as I started to take in my scenery and connect it to my transition did I realize the overall expanse of the entire city was the punctum.
The next picture also follows my visual transition from suburbia to city. This building casted a golden aura and, in this sense, was my studium. I particularly chose to capture this building because I felt that it represented the sense of excitement, anticipation, and hope that holds in my new life. This was then my punctum. I wanted to capture this moment because it was a clear symbol for the good that is to come in the future, no matter how cheesily optimistic that sounds. As Sontag stated in her piece “On Photography,” “To photograph is to appropriate the thing photographed. It means putting oneself into a certain relation to the world that feels like knowledge-and, therefore, like power,” (Sontag 4). I related my transition to this building that merely had light casted on it, yet I wanted to create this relation and wanted to feel connected to it.
As the world knows it, New York City is the center for quick and focused movement. Whether it’s commuting through the transit system, walking on the street, or even ordering food, everyone is on their game and showing their greatest amount efficiency and speed. I took several photos of the subway and Columbus circle to demonstrate this constant, rapid movement. As we all live the commuter life, we all know that feeling of being in the “zone” when going to school or any destination in the city. We walk fast, carry a serious stare, and our blood pressure rises if we approach the dreaded slow walker. These photos show the typical setting that any New Yorker goes through daily. The subway is the most prominent space where this tense atmosphere of needing to go somewhere as fast as possible is present. Whether it’s being pushed by rushing commuters or being squeezed against the subway doors, we all feel this intense. The picture of Columbus Circle also shows the same fast-paced life. The speeding taxis have little care for the pedestrians while the pedestrians have little care for the taxis. It’s this circle of movement that is never ending.
This constant movement type of living can also be extremely impersonal. We’re all in our own worlds with our own goals and plans and this can lead us to ignoring and neglecting the people and sceneries that are around us. These pictures of the subway and Columbus Circle really show two different realities. There is the reality of the commuter life in which we are all focused on getting somewhere as quickly as possible, while there is another reality in which we are absorbed in our own individual worlds that we forget to see and connect with the people and setting around us. In this sense, the city can be extremely cold and distant.
Finally, I realized that there is an aspect of the city that allows the people to slow down and have a connection to their surroundings and the people in them: food. Food is such a vital part of the city. There are numerous of different styles of food that bring all of us together to enjoy a meal and enjoy other cultures. It can be in a small hole in the wall restaurant, a diner, or one of those aesthetically pleasing cafés. The picture of the diner and this delicious dessert represent this opportunity for connection.
All of these pictures have shown the transition in my life from a quiet suburb to a wild and exciting city. Whether it’s seeing the change in scenery, experiencing the rapidness of the commuter life, or appreciating the importance of food and its connection to the people, New York City has offered me a new life that I can cherish.
