NYC Conversations

One last tranche from my fall trip to New York and then on to other work. To paraphrase “The Naked City”: “There are eight million conversations in the naked city.” These images show some of those conversations: public or private, intimate or contentious, posturing or honest.

This couple was walking hand in hand past Madison Square Garden enjoying the fall evening, enjoying each other’s company. At an intersection, laughing at a shared joke they embraced; an honest embrace, a deep embrace, an embrace filled with love and laughter.

Embrace

Of course some people have the contrary image: the abrasive, argumentative New Yorker. I had passed this group of friends several times and at a stage in Times Square they stopped to visit. On the surface this image would confirm the stereotype. In fact the opposite is true. They were listening to each other intently (Times Square is noisy) and the very next instant all of them burst out in laughter. In another post I ranted a bit about people wanting their images to reflect the reality as they saw it; well, this shows that you can manipulate that reality using space and time. Once again, context is everything.

You talkin' to me?

As if it's not hard enough to develop human relationships in the "Naked City" we seem to sabotage our attempts by erecting so many artificial barriers. These four friends pulled up in the Village and no sooner had they crossed the street than out came the iThingies; other people more interesting than the people they were with.

iThingies

How different from this group of friends, in the moment, using the same technology to come together.

We were here

That's about it for New York for now. The remainder of the images can be found in my Smugmug gallery, here. I'm really looking forward to my next visit and work on some of the themes that I've written about. Brooklyn beckons as well.