Greenwich Street near the World Trade Center (4×5 negative) — © Brian Rose
I’ve been catching up on scanning recent 4×5 negatives from the Bowery and the World Trade Center, my two current projects. The image above was made a few months ago and was taken a couple of blocks from ground zero. A fence displays the list of names of those killed on 9/11–The Heroes of September 11, 2001 it reads–and the steel containers behind hold contractor offices or equipment storage related to the nearby construction site. The names are now found at the completed 9/11 memorial, etched in stone.
Closeup from image above — © Brian Rose
It is an image that I find particularly satisfying–the multiplicity of layers, materials, colors–a telling detail, the 9/11 list, that gives larger context and raison d’etre. The emptiness of the streets seems almost unreal in such a densely built place. It’s not a photograph I’d likely take with a small camera–or at least thinking through the medium of a small camera. It is an image made with the assumption that details will read even when printed large, or especially when printed large. The computer screen gives only an impression of what would be there in a higher resolution print.
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I can understand the satisfaction you have expressed here. Is saw it all before I read the accompanying text to the image.
You have put a lot of thought (it comes with using a 4×5 view camera) into the placement of all the elements in this photo, all the way down to the perfect positioning of the light pole holding the street sign. My favorite visual element is the receding building faces, leading us to a tiny pocket of blue sky at the top of the frame.
I wandered these streets around the same time you took this negative and from a far land now, it takes me back to those few days in New York, back in mid-August this year.
Great NY image- really shows how the city’s various nooks and crannies constantly evolve and change even when apparently stagnant. Would have worked w/o the sign, with it- priceless!