Today Autumn feels like it's coming to a close. It's in the 40's with a frigid wind chill and and occasionally sideways rain, despite the forecast being for cool, cloudy skies only. The radar this morning looked like a small hurricane had its calm eye right over the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Rain was all around and would inevitably move over our position, but leaves were falling off the trees on my street at a rate that made me think that this may be one of my last opportunities to shoot for the "Concrete Autumn" project. So I ended up shooting for about 45 minutes under the shelter of the overpass as it began to rain.

This is the first shot I pulled from the camera. It's unorthodox in its composition with respect to the stop light, but I like it much better than the other, more perfect rule-of-thirds compositions that I'd taken of the same subject matter. The low, slightly out-of-focus, incorrect framing of the signal makes the scene feel more authentic. A stunning architectural achievement next to stunning autumnal colors would just have been too much. This is New York, and a shitty day in New York to boot, so this image has to have a scar. It needs to be imperfect, else it wouldn't feel real.

If you're curious, this was taken under the Henry Hudson Parkway almost immediately next to Fairway (the best grocery store in Manhattan), on 12th Avenue at 130th Street.

Concrete Autumn #7. Yes, I skipped a few numbers here. There are images that correspond to the missing editions, but I'm not yet sure if I like them enough to post them. We'll see in the next day or two. This project will, whether I like it or not, come to a close very soon. Shortly all the leaves will be gone.

The second in this series. I like this less than the first, but it's like a big steak covered in bearnaise - not necessarily complex or interesting, but satisfying. This was taken in Bryant Park.

UPDATE: 11/12/09 - The more I look at this the more I think that this doesn't fit at all in the Concrete Autumn series. Staring at the 13x19" print I made of it, I've started to think of this as a more modern take on hell. If the devil were to design a city for those condemned, it might look much like this -beautiful at first glance, but with views of eerie red trees from perfectly ordered buildings containing flames of hell, emanating from toaster oven-like lighting fixtures in the ceilings.

Thanks to my brother for pointing out that the buildings looked like they were on fire, and that it was a bit creepy. I'm definitely not sending a print of this to Amy's mother now.

The first of a series tentatively titled "Concrete Autumn," showing my contrasting loves of industrial and architectural structure and grime with the fall colors that look all the more stunning when shown next to it all. If anyone has a more inspiring title for the series, or for this image in particular, I'd love to hear it.