One Wold Trade Center (and Neighbors), NYC, 2019.
All the pixels, none of the traffic, at https://www.flickr.com/photos/mattblaze/49291055921
#photography
This was captured with the Rodenstock 70mm/5.6 HR Digaron-W lens. A large image circle allows room for considerable movements, used here to swing to selectively focus on the WTC tower. A polarizer darkened the clear sky a bit, as well as taming some of the highlights reflected off the glass wall of the tower.
The shape of the new One WTC makes the light catch it differently throughout the day and in different weather. I made several exposures at different times before settling on this one.
It’s generally simpler to capture tall skyscrapers like this from a distant vantage point; the classic photos of WTC are usually shot from Brooklyn or New Jersey. But here I wanted to show it as it’s seen in the neighborhood. The foreground buildings look taller in the frame, but the (much taller) One WTC tower still stands out, given its uncrowded position in the skyline, as if its neighbors maintain a respectful distance.
It’s been difficult to separate the new World Trade Center building from that terrible day in 2001, but we now have the benefit of just enough time that we can begin to discuss the tower as a piece of architecture and as part of the skyline, on its own terms.
@mattblaze@federate.social I didn’y live in NYC until after that horrific day. I visited NYC for 1st time in 1999 and even visited the Twin Towers.
I lived in NYC for 12 years, but as my associations with that day are not as raw as those who truly lived it, the building feels to me a representation of resilience.
As a runner living in WV/GV/Soho, I typically ran Hudson River Park, lower Manhattan, over Bridge & Brooklyn Bridge Park, & that building was like the North Star, almost always visible.@mattblaze@federate.social I liked once Bronx resident’s suggestion: rebuild them exactly as they were, except add one more floor. Then add 4 towers along each edge. 3 of the towers would be 2 stories tall, the 4th (second from the left) would be 10 stories tall.
I’ll omit his suggestions for billboards on them.
