"The Face of the 'Modern' City"

Walls of glass and windows devoid of ornamentation, piled one in front

of the other in a compressed view, typify the modern American city

downtown and also many non-American cities, although 'post-

modernism' with its ornamentation and deviations from the plainness of

modernness is making inroads architecturally. This is NOT Manhattan

and could be any major city; can you name this city? Your ratings,

critiques, and remarks are invited and most welcome. If you rate

harshly or very critically, please submit a helpful and constructive

comment; thank you in advance for sharing your photograhic knowledge

to help improve my photography. Enjoy! John

Great abstract, John, and also a bit of optical illusion. At first I thought there is a slant to the left, but looking at it straight on, the verticals stand perpendicular to the base. If you look at it from either side, the vertical lines seem to lean to the opposite side.

Abstracts leave an open door for interpretation and this photo can be a representative of city life itself. Where every individual is lost in a crowd of similar people; the sense of being alone in a crowd. A faceless, nameless situation.

The contrast has stood out well as have the tonal range. Regards.

I am enjoying our continuing dialog.

The verticals are not all perpendicular to the base; on the right they are left-leaning, to the left, right leaning.  It's a factor of the face my lens did not do a complete 'compression' from an infinite distance.  If there had been an infinite distance, all building stories would have been parallel, I think.  I'll have to study more to ensure that's correct.  (This was taken with a 200 mm tele from a car in stalled traffic on a freeway, just roll down the power window, take out camera with long lens, fire quickly and move along a few car lengths.

And you are right, it is an 'abstract' and as such is representative in its way (as I would have suggested) of the 'boxes' that so many work inside.  Yet, within each box, there is much individuality, so the outward appearance may deceiving.  Personalities, interior architecture, individual jobs, etc., may vary greatly.  There may be a power suite on one floor, perhaps in a large corner, and a bank of telemarketers in another, each in their own carrel or just elbow to elbow at desks . . . who knows? 

It may not be entirely correct to confuse the regular geometry of the outside with what goes on in the inside, but at some point, it IS all the same what goes on inside.  It is, after all is said and done, big business, and all done at the same hours. It's not manufacturing, not retail and it's offices, after all, and offices require workers who come at relatively fixed hours, then at certain times they leave . . . . and all about the same time, though less and less so as the ecology dictates a varied commute.

But customers expect businesses to be 'open' certain hours, and if not, the customers go elsewhere, and so 'wage slaves' must be there to accommodate them.

I once worked in more than one such tower myself, and haven't in more than 20 years, thankfully.

Just finding a car in a car park (parking garage) was a frustrating task if one didn't have an assigned, reserved space.

I also considered this photo with 'insets' for a full page spread in a book -- insets on one side showing one urban scene (a stalled bus and its drive leaning despondently against a windshield and still searching for the scene for the other side, but it could be many.  This photo easily is 'plain enough' it will accommodate such 'inserts' without undermining its abstract character.

Just put some more urban scenes from middle distances in smaller sizes over the left and right sides of this and imagine this photo is across the gutter of a book and you'll see what I mean.  Border those photos and the real effect will come across.  It makes an ideal backdrop as well as a pretty good standalone photo.

It is anonymous, and for good reason I have withheld the name of the city; though some may guess it based on my travels or on their own sightings.  It does not matter however, as this is a representative view of much of what Americans see in 'big cities' nationwide and also across Canada's large cities.  Even Frankfurt doesn't look much different, since it was rebuilt AFTER the war. 

Other, European cities have downtown areas free from such buildings in their historic downtowns but their outskirts are ringed by high rises; see Paris, Amsterdam, etc.

Such buildings are emblematic of the 20th C. and apparently also part of the 21st C. e.g., See the outlines of part of a post-modern building to the leftmost, indicating this was not taken 20 or 40 years ago, otherwise there would be little clue as to its time of taking.

Like I said, I am happy to continue our ongoing dialog.

john

John (Crosley)

Samrat, I made a mistake.

This was not taken from a freeway in stalled traffic; I have others that are similar.

It was taken from a parking lot not so far away from the elevated freeway, looking up (which partly explains the diverging lines).

Please excuse the error in memory.  Like most photographers I have the ability to recall the circumstances of almost every shot I have taken when I review the group of shots in context.

john

John (Crosley)

Great B&W shot. Nice play of light and shadows and lines and squares.

Actually I should say, and I hate it, that the pole on the right bottom is a bit distracting and that should be cloned out.  In any case it's part of the view and it's ok.

PS: I-ve no idea which city is...

Best regards,

Vincenzo

I don't clone, or better said, I won't clone such a photo for such a feature, unless and until the director of a famous museum (Getty, MOMA, et al.) directs me to as a condition of purchasing my collection.

Otherwise, no soap.

It may be distracting and 'less than perfect' but I'm also 'less than perfect' and so is most of my work -- almost every single one.

I've learned to be at home with a few warts, and of course, posting on Photo.net is a place to learn where one's warts are, as members are very careful in noting all of them.

You analysis, however, is right on, and makes the description verbally in ways I had not tried to enunciate yet, for which I thank you (play of light and shadow, for instance)  I can see it sometimes but can't always 'say it' until some good critic (like you) does so first.

Thank you for a helpful analysis.

john

John (Crosley)

Great composition in which the ugly is shown to be beautiful! My personal attitude is that the modern city architecture is ugly!

PDE

It has been the challenge of the photographer and the portraitist before him almost from time immemorial to make the ugly into the pretty.

I had no commission and just saw something I thought I could make interesting, so I pointed my camera after positioning myself as best I could.

I've been looking at this as a possible post for some time, and even considered putting it into a book across the gutter in the center with photo insets left and right, showing portions or urban life, since it was so 'abstract' and unvariegated. 

It has 'detail' but all the 'detail' appears pretty much like the other detail -- more of the same, no matter which building it is.

If architects earned 10%of the cost for designing and erecting these buildings, that was a pretty good racket.  I can make cookie cutters and if I get 10% of all the cookies they cut, that's pretty wonderful and these buildings appear constructed according to a cookie cutter formula.

Post modern is a little better, though most of the interesting detail (if you can call it that) goes generally to tops of buildings where it is not very visible except to denizens high up in nearby buildings.

I'm reminded by these about Malvina Reynolds' famous little ditty about American suburban houses with its famous refrain: 'And they're all made out of ticky-tacky.   And they all look just the same.'

These aren't made of ticky-tack but 'curtain walls are a close equivalent, I think, and just as insubstantial; it's the steel girders that hold them up, and the walls are just 'curtains' as the term implies.

Did Pete Seeger sing the famous song?

There should have been another equally disdainful refrain for the high rises (once called skyscrapers) where the doctors and the lawyers from the ticky-tack houses went to work.

Malvina Reynolds, songwriter, where are you now?

We need your talent.

Thanks Pierre for your able and interesting analysis.

john

John (Crosley)

No you don't require more distance to have parallel lines. You need another camera.  You have to tilt, shift, rise, fall and swing baby!! Buy a Toyo. Buy me one too.

That lens was something like a fine piece of machinery combined with a soft of a gemstone.

Its tolerances were so close that one could imagine that each time you tilted or swung the lens some Japanese said a prayer just to approve the closing of the lens -- that's how tight they were.

I kind of like the lines in this, diverging as they are; I wouldn't have used a tilt/shift for this photo.  I would if it were for an architect and it were his building, but this is an 'interpretation' and my interpretation is that things have to 'fall away' or diverge a little bit to add some disjunction.  I didn't want entirely parallel lines, at the cost of too much symmetry and an entirely way too dull photo.

The diverging lines add just enough dissonance to bring the music of this composition somewhere near the Th C. closer than pure classical style.

This is note photo for a purist. If you're working for an architect or making a 'true' 'this is how you want it to look' (now how it would look) photo, then tilt/shift is the right lens.

They are marvels.

How about a boxcar load full of Nikons?

How about you send me your D700?

I promise to treat it like the rest of my equipment.

And maybe return it if it isn't stolen.

;~)

john

John (Crosley)

Editing software took out the reference to 20th C. music, and just left the confusing term 'th C.'

Please accept my apologies. Somehow these comments are not compatible with Google spell check and we must use secondary spell check software which is better than before, but almost third rate and full of idiosyncracies.

The editing period had closed, or I'd have quietly fixed the error as I did for about six years previously with no notation of the fact. 

You personally are a major reason the editing period was changed to be closed after a short period after years of being open forever.  After you joined you made a point of making a written comment, (often controversial or a troll), awaiting a response, and later removing your remark as though it didn't exist in the first place, orphaning the replies and interfering with the progression and integrity of the colloquy.

Your prior bad behavior now is part of why all of us must make comments such as this to denote small edits . . . . . because the rules were changed partly as a result of your prior misbehavior.

This is something I had warned you against and which led to my one-year ban against my replying to your numerous comments . . . .

You have been somewhat better behaved lately (though far from perfect, as we both know), and I write this to you as a matter of history, to remind you that bad actions can have consequences.

john

John (Crosley)

And if you believe that folks, John will sell you a bridge to Arizona. Oh, by the way John; how about giving the make and model of that-there shift/tilt lens partner, and with what camera. Another bridge to Arizona?. How much? 

You did not listen to Roxie or just did not get it.