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Ashley Britton's picture

505 on Fifth

My second day trip to NYC turned out to be a disaster. I’ll spare you the complaining of how terrible the trip turned out. There wasn’t much pictures I got to take but with the ones I did take, I was happy with. A few pictures is better than none.

This image was taken in the midst of a down pour. I was in the heart of Time Square when suddenly it started raining. At this point it’s evening and I am starting to get drained from the day. I was on sensory overload, tired from all the walking, and just over being saturated with the thick, filthy atmosphere and the constant smell of pee so I decided to just head home. As I was running back to Grand Central sans umbrella, I passed this building with the glowing red lights that literally stopped me in my tracks. I was in love with everything about this; the architecture, the lights and color of course, and the whole vibe I was getting just by looking at the building. I just had to capture it and the fact that it was pouring out made me want to get creative with my shot opposed to just taking a basic snapshot of the building and it’s lighting. Looking like a crazy person standing in the down pour taking this picture while everyone else either had an umbrella or hovered in the buildings crevices to shield themselves from the storm, I started shooting away at slower shutter to capture movement of people walking by and what was happening in that moment of taking the picture. I’ve been in this capturing movement mood lately and I’m not sure why. I took about 10-15 photos before I was able to get the shot I had in mind. It‘s such a rewarding feeling to be able to translate what you envision on to your photos.

Fun fact: the light art in this building was installed by artist James Turrell.

As I’m taking these photos in such uncomfortable conditions, a stranger approaches me and starts giving me a history lesson about the lighting, the artist and the architecture. I was actually interested in what he was saying but I was more focused on getting my shots so I wasnt too acknowledging towards him. He eventually took the hint that I was in no mood to hold an in depth conversation so he dismissed himself. But on the train ride home, I did research on what the guy was saying and the architecture was created by a very upscale company called Kohn Pederson Fox, and the light art is indeed by artist James Turrell.

LEICA CAMERA AG LEICA SL (Typ 601)
28mm · f/4.8 · 1/20s · ISO 1600
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