Memories
This image, over 30 years old, is one of my more memorable nighttime shots for several reasons. Captured back in the days of film camera's, this digital conversion does not do the original slide justice. The original slide is capable of great enlargement, while this digital conversion has it’s overall sharpness lessened. And a few elements were lost in the cropping along the lower right hand corner that added to detail and interest of the scene. Plus details in the shadows were lost into inky blackness, and highlight details were burned away. So at least in this case the loss in translation from slide to digital was significant, though happily I haven't found that to be the case with all the slides I’ve given to companies to convert to digital. But the ones with dynamic ranges similar to this did.
Of course there is an easy solution to all this. Now that I have a top of the line full frame digital camera I can take the shot again, no doubt even better that would have no conversion losses because, already being digit, there would be nothing to convert. My problem with that solution is in the nature of existence on this planet - it is constantly changing.
The change in this case is our horrific loss of the World Trade Center which is where I took this shot from. While there is also an observation deck on the Freedom Tower that I could take this shot from again, the Freedom Tower lies over to the left from the hollowed grounds of the Twin Towers. From it’s perspective that far left, the Municipal building would slide correspondingly over to the right in the shot. That would cause it to almost or totally block Park Row, the large street you see on the right.
Back then when I would come up to the observation deck and look down at this sight there were two things that mesmerized me. One the Municipal building itself, rising up into the sky like a majestic modern day castle, and the streets running beside it, particularly Park Row. Once the sun went down the street lights made the roads look like they were paved with gold. The combination made it my favorite sight every trip up there at night. So taking this shot again from this new location would cut off part of the scene that made the shot so special. Also from a compositional standpoint this viewing angle of the Municipal building from the World Trade Center, was absolutely ideal. Moving over to the left would, while probably nice, be less than ideal. So while the quality of the image would definitely improve, the scene itself would almost surely do the opposite. And in photography composition and lighting (in this case the building and the streets) is everything.
Now there is always the chance the move to the left wouldn’t move the Municipal building over to the right much, or it might move it so far to the right as to slide all the way over to the other side of Park Row and not block anything of interest, and open views of new objects I like even better than the ones from this view. Eventuality I’m just going to have to go up to this new observation deck and find out. But for now I trust my instincts, and in this case they’re telling me whatever solution I eventually come to, it’s going to have to be done using this old image I took 30 years ago, not from any new ones yet to come.
Now because of how much poorer the light sensitivity of slide film back then had compared to digital sensors today, I was forever finding myself up against a wall when it came to having enough light to record my image, and still use a low enough film speed to do my subject justice. Most of the time I was shooting nature scenes, or candid shots of people who then were not purposely standing still so I could capture my shot. So I almost always had Ectachrome 100 - fairly reasonable in image quality in one of my camera's, or even Ectachrome 200, which then REALLY made my subjects take a big image quality hit.
Unlike today where we can change our light sensitivity settings for each shot we take (if time permits that is), back in the days of slide and print film, the whole roll of film had to be shot at one speed. For a young man who had to save up loose change from meals and other purchases to afford to buy a roll of film and then have it processed (the money I budgeted back then for my new camera equipment usually left little money each year for the film to put in it!), I always had to think of all the potential subjects I might have planned to shoot with that roll of film, and using a film with a rated speed below 100 meant I probably wouldn't be able to capture most of the shots I hoped to get with that roll if I did. When I read in the newspaper that finally after several years the scaffolding around the tower of Municipal building was coming down I was elated, as you can imagine how much I had always wanted to capture this magnificent edifice, but the scaffolding would have ruined the shot. So probably for the first time ever I was willing to splurge and buy a roll of film just for this one scene.
As the building wasn't going anywhere I decided that for maybe only the second time in my few years of photographing I could use Kodachrome the king of all films. I had calculated that I could even shoot this scene using Kodachrome 25, widely considered the finest slide film ever created, and still capture this shot in around 30 seconds. I probably used my handheld Minolta spot meter to come to this conclusion, as my camera’s internal meter would have been unreliable for any low light exposure over 1 second. And my exposure expertise wasn't nearly good enough to nail this one with a guess in my head like I did with the sunset shot of the 59th street bridge taken a year or two before this.
The near 30 second time limit was important. As I mentioned before the streets with their golden color was important to the overall success of the shot. That golden glow would stand out more easily if there wasn’t and endless stream of car head and tail lights covering it. If I timed the shot with a red signal then the cars at all the red lights would wait for almost all of the 30 second or so exposure and greatly reduce the overall stream of car lights. Additionally I wanted cars to be totally visible in front of the traffic lights, especially for the cars waiting at the lights in Kimlau Square which is just above and to the right of the Municipal building from this angle. I felt this was more visually appealing then a road filled with invisible cars with just their head and tail lights.
Now I think this is a good time to mention where some confusion over this shot lies. After all this time I can't remember the exact year I took this. It was definitely on an October evening (my slide has the faded date I wrote on it. The month is clear but the day and year are not) and in my mind I was almost certain it was between 1988 and 1989. However when I looked up the records of the Municipal building they all state that there were only two extensive repairs to the outside structure. 1989 being the start, not the ending of the repair closest to this time frame. The repairs from that remodeling didn't end until 1993, far past the time that I recalled taking this shot.
But that oddity aside it remains a shot filled with memories for me. One of the only shots that I still have taken on Kodachrome, be it 64 or 25. And certainly the only one on 25 so this shot is special. Due to the a fore mentioned conversion problems it can only be really appreciated looking at the shot with a magnifying loop on a light box, or on a good screen projected by something like my old top of the line Leica slide projector. No matter what company I've had convert high dynamic range slides to digital, it just hasn’t worked so far.
This was also the first shot I ever sold, though I did it at cost for one of my friends, who loved the shot so much she was willing to pay $180 to have a 20 by 24 Cibachrome made of it, as Cibachromes were one of the very best ways to enlarge a shot and retain a large share of the fidelity of the original slide, but something you'd only do with a really superb shot due to the expense.
It's also the longest exposure I ever did, and this was not the best location for a long exposure as they didn't let you shoot with tripods in the observation deck, so I had to sneak my smallest one in, sit in front of the window and shield my camera with my jacket, mostly to block reflections on the glass from ruining the shot. And it was a fitting way to honor the re-unveiling of one of the cities grandest landmarks.
Maybe one day they'll come up with a way to preserve the full details of slides when converting them to digital and I can finally do justice to this shot. But for now it's fun to look at it and remember the days back when I was a young lad looking out at the city and dreaming of what the future would hold.
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Nikon F3
Kodachrome 25
Nikon 135mm series E lens
f4
32 seconds
