There’s something unique about New York City. I happened to be in the city for some business not related to photography but took the opportunity to explore a little bit.

I didn’t explore in the “Christopher Columbus” sense but I did try new things and wander quite a bit around the city. I’m by no means a NYC native or even close to knowing the city very well, so I stuck to just a few streets near the Grand Hyatt where I was staying.

One night the fog had rolled into the city and was hanging very low which made for a lot of really interesting lighting conditions. I kept waiting for Batman to fly down from one of the buildings in pursuit of the Joker….it was that sort of mood.

The fog made the lights in Times Square turn into beacons that seemed more like light orbs with no real shape than the brightly lit, digital signs that we usually encounter.

It was pretty nerve-racking, nonetheless, to be wandering around Manhattan at 10pm on my own with a big DSLR around my neck. If it was Seoul I would have felt a lot more comfortable…but that’s a whole other story.

Two of the big things that kept popping up during my short journey and wanderings were:

1. The “city” doesn’t stop. Something is always going on everywhere you look. It was so fluid and responsive it felt alive.
2. You get sucked in. It is a mesmerizing place to be. It really is. The lights, traffic, sounds, everything around you culminates into a sort of poetic high that it is easy to succumb to.

I love Grand Central Terminal. Everything about it kept me wandering the various concourses trying to find new ways of looking at it. It changed moods nearly hourly, too. It felt angry and rushed in the late afternoon, relaxed and static in the late evening. There were NYPD all around the station as well as several armed troops in camouflage most of the time as well. I know I was watched quite a bit but I guess that’s part of being a dude with a camera.