Synchronicity - Bird and Skyscrapers - New York City - By Vivienne Gucwa Birds have a synchronous relationship with the city. They fly with such brazen freedom through the man-made caverns soaring above the frenetic flow of the city below. -- - New York Through The Lens - New York Photos

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New York City photography by Vivienne Gucwa.

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New York City - By Vivienne Gucwa

Growing up in Queens, a borough of New York City, I was surrounded by a general attitude of contempt and disgust regarding anything tourist related. My father who worked nights as a newspaper pressman in Manhattan hated going into Manhattan for anything other than work (his job was back-breaking) and my mother echoed the same jaded sentiment towards ‘touristy things’ in Manhattan as her other outer-borough friends. The ‘city’ (as many people still call it) was something to be proud to live in very close proximity to but anything too popular in the ‘city’ was the subject of eye-rolls.

I grew up mimicking this sentiment; a sort of ‘been there, done that’ mentality. We would only ever go to things like Times Square and the Empire State Building when relatives or friends visited and there was a silent stoicism related to showing ‘the sights’ to ‘out-of-towners’. I always found this amusing. These sights that were derided as nothing more than trite spectacles were the same sights that my parents deemed worthy to spend time taking people to when people came to visit us.

When I moved to Manhattan a decade ago, I carried this attitude with me. It wasn’t until I started taking photos that I fully opened my eyes (so to speak). Granted, I had always found beauty in the things many people passed over; architectural details on tops of buildings, the way that sunlight hit buildings at different times of the day. However, when I finally discarded the jadedness that permeated my early years I started realizing how utterly phenomenal and fascinating all those ‘touristy’ things are.

It may have taken me many years to fully grasp why people come from all over the world to gaze lovingly at sights and architectural marvels like the Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building but now that I know it’s hard not to gaze at these sights with anything but wonder. There is so much to be in awe of in this spectacular city.

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This is an early morning view from the top of the Empire State Building looking out over the huge variety of skyscrapers that populate the skyline of midtown.

In the distance sits Central Park with the MetLife Building and Chrysler Building to the right and Bryant Park and Rockefeller Center towards the left and center. The Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge is to the right of the Chrysler Building in this view and Queens can be seen to the right of the bridge disappearing into the haze.

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Serenity - Central Park Winter - Poet's Walk - New York City - By Vivienne Gucwa

I love heavy snowfall and I found myself braving the super high wind gusts to wander around a mostly empty Central park during one particularly rambunctious blizzard. I don’t really recommend it and thinking back, it was a bit risky considering that the wind gusts were around 55 mph and higher. Wind gusts and trees don’t make for the safest of combinations. However, I have never seen Central Park in such a serene state.

The only people who were in the park that day were small amounts of people who lived in the surrounding neighborhoods, brave tourists and intrepid photographers with giddy expressions on their faces. I could probably count on both hands the number of people I encountered and I ended up covering most of the park on foot that day (I was never so happy to get home and drink hot chocolate that evening).

This part of Central Park is known as The Poet’s Walk or Literary Walk. The reason why this part of the park is known as Poet’s Walk and/or Literary Walk is because at the very end of this section, several statues of famous writers line the path. It’s at the southern end of a section called The Mall.

The Mall is only straight line in Central Park and the trees that line it are its crowning and most distinctive feature. They are American elm trees and are the largest and last remaining stands in all of North America. Over the years, other large grouping of American Elm trees have been destroyed by Dutch Elm disease but Central Park’s conservancy has saved a majority of the remaining trees in the park despite losing around 40 trees in the last few years to this contagious fungus.

The Poet’s Walk is one of my favorite spots in the autumn and winter because the trees look their most graceful and beautiful during these seasons. The leaves turn a beautiful golden yellow in the autumn and the elegant branches seem to reach out to each other when covered by freshly fallen snow in the winter.

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Saudade - The Colors of Nostalgia - Tribeca - New York City - By Vivienne Gucwa

There are certain colors that dominate memory mixed on the palette of the mind's eye with the hues from dreams and tones of nostalgia.

But it's the tones of nostalgia that stand out the most though: longing for places and moments we have or have not experienced that creates a void in our beings so deep that its echo is felt in every moment and heard in every thought.

There are words for this type of nostalgia: sensucht and saudade. Sensucht is a German word that describes the emotional state of longing and yearning and saudade is a Galician- Portuguese word that describes a similar intense state of longing for something or someone. They can both be experienced as a longing for a place that is unidentifiable but somehow familiar and indicative of what we would most closely identify as home. Sometimes the yearning is so intense that only the emotional state is what we are aware of and it's not always easy to tell that there is a deep yearning for something or someone at that moment.

New York City fills me with constant yearning with its colors and the way that light casts its glow on streets, brick, and the structures that fill in the image of New York City in my own mind. In the reds of the bricks I feel a longing for other cities I have not yet experienced and in the light that falls onto the street early in the evening I see the same light casting its glow on the spaces I wish to walk thousands of miles away.

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Times Square - New York City- By Vivienne Gucwa

Times Square is its own universe. It's New York City filtered through cinematic dreams and commercially-tinged aspirations wrapped up in flashing lights and colorful billboards. There is a familiarity to it that is tinged with a wild-eyed estranged quality that makes it all the more alluring.

And when a yellow New York City taxi cab drives by at the speed of light under all the flashing lights, it's hard not to smile.

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New York Winter - Snow Over the New York City Skyline - By Vivienne Gucwa

Snowflakes swirl over the skyscrapers and buildings: confetti from the sky blanketing the buildings and streets.

And the world transforms into a giant snow-globe, if only for a brief moment.

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What's more magical than New York City in the snow (when it first falls, of course)? This winter cityscape view is of the skyscrapers of the New York City skyline in midtown Manhattan including the Chrysler Building, the MetLife Building and a barely visible 59th Street Bridge (also known as the Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge).

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Summer in the City - Perry Street - Greenwich Village - New York City - By Vivienne Gucwa

On summer days like this, the bright summer sun barely cuts through the branches of trees canopies that line the street while brownstones and bicycles revel in the cool shade.

Some people flee the city in the summer, preferring cooler climates free of hot cement. For me, there is nothing that comes close to summer in the city.

It’s true that often the air is held captive by the high heat and the sun scorches the pavement but when a breeze is allowed free rein to fly through the trees, something magical happens.

Streets breathe a sigh of relief and warm tones of muted sunlight cast upon buildings languishing in the shade inspire smiles of contentment.

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Synchronicity - Bird and Skyscrapers - New York City - By Vivienne Gucwa

Birds have a synchronous relationship with the city.

They fly with such brazen freedom through the man-made caverns soaring above the frenetic flow of the city below.

--

The Urban Forest Primeval - Conservatory Garden - Central Park - New York City - By Vivienne Gucwa

Weary after a long slumber, the urban forest primeval stirs.

Trees, in resplendent garments of ivy, stretch their graceful limbs towards each other as the dance of spring begins: a prelude to summer's grand symphonic poem.

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Whisper - White Spring Blossoms - Central Park - By Vivienne Gucwa

You exist, this I am sure of with only slightly wavering certainty that vibrates with nothing but the tiny memory of a breeze.

You, a whisper in the night on lips that mouth your name swollen with hope.

You, a whisper that launches forth dreams on the backs of my eyelids.

And I exist too, this I am sure of with quivering certainty that holds steady in the presence of the strongest of wind gusts.

I, the whisper your lips haven't yet come across.

I, the branch that sways in the warm embrace of possibility.

I, the whisper that dances delicately in the night

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Synchronicity - Bird and Skyscrapers - New York City

- By Vivienne Gucwa

Birds have a synchronous relationship with the city.

They fly with such brazen freedom through the man-made caverns soaring above the frenetic flow of the city below.

--

Synchronicity - Bird and Skyscrapers - New York City - By Vivienne Gucwa

Birds have a synchronous relationship with the city.

They fly with such brazen freedom through the man-made caverns soaring above the frenetic flow of the city below.

--

Synchronicity - Bird and Skyscrapers - New York City

- By Vivienne Gucwa

Birds have a synchronous relationship with the city.

They fly with such brazen freedom through the man-made caverns soaring above the frenetic flow of the city below.

--

Original size: 6048x6048 |

Current: 600x600 |

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