Army of Tripods
Photographing New York for the first time is like stepping into a hundred movies, a hundred songs and a hundred TV shows, places so familiar it's hard to believe you weren't there before: from Central Park down to the Village, and from the top of the Empire State Building up to Broadway. Images so famous you're nearly afraid to photograph them for fear of repetition.
Of all its bridges, the Brooklyn Bridge hangs proud as its most iconic and photographed, so I knew trying to capture a different angle would be difficult but I had to try. I spent a good few hours walking up and down its planks, just another tourist with a camera. When I finally reached the Brooklyn end of the bridge, I found a little park area with views looking back over the bridge towards Manhattan and its skyline. I thought: perfect! I would come back in a few hours when the park was quieter and I’d have my own unique angle of the bridge with the night sky as its background.
I returned to the park at dusk with excited anticipation, but over fifty tripods greeted me, all standing to attention at exactly the same angle, my angle. I had stumbled upon one of New York's most famous vistas, I can see it now, I see it everywhere - movies, TV shows, music videos! I knew then that every photographer who had ever photographed Manhattan had found this place before me, still, I clicked away, a lone soldier among an army of tripods.