28/05/10 09:37

On a trip to New York City in 2010, I gave myself an assignment -- to try to photograph iconic NYC locations in ways that I hadn’t seen countless times before. A temporary exhaust hose emerging from a vent in the street was giving off a steady supply of steam whenever I passed by, and I took advantage of the look to take photos of the Chrysler building both during the day and at night. For the shots at night, I played with longer shutter speeds. The photo “Chrysler Exhaust” had a 1.3 second shutter speed, which allowed the steam to pick up the reddish glow of the lights of passing cars. The daytime shot was a much faster shutter speed, but slow enough that the heat of the steam altered the straight lines of the building, as if the beams were melting in the steam. Perhaps the biggest surprise of my efforts to get these shots was the visits that I was paid by security guards of the Waldorf Astoria, who seemed troubled that someone was setting up a camera on a tripod behind their hotel. Allowing them to look through the viewfinder seemed to ease their concerns.