Spotlight Burning

"Spotlight Burning" was taken through a hole in the fence on the Brooklyn side of the Manhattan Bridge, looking down onto DUMBO. Seeing the incredible contrast between the luminescent pavement and the charred shadows of the people and cars, I ratcheted up the contrast in-camera and began shooting. Saturation was slightly increased post-production, turning the yellowish tint of the streets into an electrifying orange. The city is the backdrop of our personal dramas, yet rarely does its streets so obviously take the form of societal theater, with humanity’s silhouettes giving the stage its ambiguous, yet nonetheless readily comprehensible, actors. "Spotlight Burning" is a photo of action and movement; but it also works as a painting, frozen in time. The photo’s form is spontaneous, not a set-piece—I certainly would not have conceived of such a composition with its slight imbalance of the shadows, and the figures mostly on the right of the street, a deviation from the strong axial compositions I generally prefer. Yet there is incredible variety in both the structure and activities of the figures, each doing different things, creating interesting, quasi-abstract forms through their crisscrossing, some in movement and some stagnant, taking photos with their phones, setting up lighting equipment, or walking their scooter across the street. Despite all this swirling activity, the composition is balanced due to its defined superstructure. "Spotlight Burning’s" interplay between dynamism and stillness keeps me coming back to the photo, again and again, and I hope it will keep you coming back as well, always exploring more of the panoply of one moment in New York City.