Artist and photographer
Andre Lichtenberg’s brand new images of Manhattan’s skyline present a beautifully stylish view of New York as we’ve never seen it before. Angie talks about the two new photographs below.
One of the great things about photograph representations of a city that’s constantly changing and developing is that they capture a moment in time that will never again be the same. Having lived in London now for 15 years, I’ve been around when new buildings have appeared, such as the affectionately nick-named ‘Walkie-Talkie’ and the ‘Gherkin’, and of course most recently the Shard. I like the fact that my city is always developing and new architects are taken on to make eye-catching constructions that change the city skyline forever. It feels progressive and exciting, and with so many historical buildings in London, often the juxtaposition between old and new can be really beautiful.
Having previously focused on the UK’s capital in his previous ‘Vertigo’ series, where he produced vertigo-inducing shots from the top of some of Canary Wharf’s tallest buildings that captured life on the ground,
Andre Lichtenberg has now turned his attention to New York’s Manhattan. In this new series of works he continues to apply what appears to be a metallic filter, accentuating the ‘new development’ feel. The final images are created by placing together close-up shots in a similar way to a digital collage, in order to achieve a ‘super-real’ level of detail. Due to this process, the images aren’t enlarged like an average photograph is when it’s printed, therefore there’s an incredibly high level of definition which gives the photographs the appearance of an illustration or a drawing, and this is a really beautiful quality.
The colours of the original photographs are treated, enhanced and adjusted depending on how Andre feels they should work in relation to the overall image. By presenting the cityscapes in a muted palette of silver, bronze and platinum tones, it enables the viewer to focus on the buildings themselves, both old and new; in a general sense the browner tones picking out the older buildings, the lighter more aluminium colours indicating the new ones due to the materials used when they were built.
In
NY Study, Bryant Park, a large portion of the bottom of the image is taken up by greenery, which really adds to the piece. Part of what makes cities such as New York and London so great is the fact that they have some amazing parks - essentially areas for inhabitants to escape from the hustle and bustle of the busy streets, and so it’s fantastic that Andre has decided to include one here. As the title suggests, this is Bryant Park, just off Sixth Avenue in Midtown. A creative area with many media and advertising agencies nearby, the park is popular with New Yorkers; there’s an ice-skating rink there at Christmas and it’s often featured in movies set in the city.
NY Study 4, 58th Street East is again Midtown and shows the view from the corner of 59th and First Avenue. Here we see the tip of some of the city’s most famous buildings such as the Empire State, and on the far right hand side 432 Park Avenue, the new tallest residential building in New York.
I’m a fan of The Big Apple and have always been attracted to cityscapes since I was a child (despite growing up in countrified suburbia), and so these works are very appealing to me. I think whether you’re a New Yorker, a regular visitor, or simply a lover of the city, these stylish and highly-finished photographic studies are for you. See them in more detail online
here.