Somehow, Manhattan and I had never quite crossed paths before, even though I’ve been a pro shooter for about forty years, based in Newport Beach, CA, shooting architecture, resorts, golf courses, people, landscapes, shadows, reflections, and/or anything outside of a studio, thereby learning to dance with the sun, or more like wrestle it, chase it, curse it, ponder it, embrace it and harvest its light...fancy talk for putting a nice frame around anything that gets in your way. So here, like a good tourist, I tracked down all the shiny and beloved New York City icons I could find, on foot, and shot ‘em up real good, along with everything I saw between destinations...fire escapes, architectural details, statues, trees, parks...fire escapes...long shadows all day this time of year, and much to my delight, October colors in late November. Long live color! And me too. Right?

My Lightroom catalog informs me that I pressed the shutter button 2,047 times, trolling for light beam anomalies and vector-wrangling all the live-long day. You may correctly assume that this is nothing more than fancy talk for putting a nice frame around anything that gets in your way. If you’re aimlessly wandering through an enormous urban landscape with a 24mm-1200mm point-and-shoot camera...“it’s what you do”.

This latest effort is part of my DRVN2 abstraction series of picture books, all of which are currently viewable and for purchase at Blurb.com and soon enough through Amazon. Look me up there as “Vectorfarmer”, “DRVN2”, or “John Connell” to see them all. But for the moment, for immediate gratification, take a look at New York City through the eyes of this tourist...and enjoy the view!