Michael Kenna’s photograph captioned as “Middle Highview New York” comes off as a very interesting perspective of the New York skyline. Taken in 2006, this photo portrays the city of New York perhaps from the perspective of being in a plane or helicopter. It also can be seen as if someone is looking off a rooftop, admiring the vast amounts of bright buildings down below. This photo has no use of color other than black and white, a theme that most of Kenna’s photographs have.
As a result, Kenna demonstrates several different elements of interesting photography using this photograph. There is a nice contrast between the lit and dark buildings, creating a pattern of sorts that appeal to the eye even more in black and white. He also captures the majority of the buildings diagonally, creating lines that the viewer can navigate around to view other parts of the photo. In addition, Kenna has a slight figure-ground situation going on in this image as the buildings closer to the camera have much more focus. Then, as the viewer looks further into the photo, the buildings in the background become less of the subject and serve more as the background. These elements described create a mood of a person looking out at the night skyline of New York, perhaps to clear their head or just to take in the breathtaking view on a beautiful night. The diagonals allow for the person to become lost within the massive and towering buildings, yet they still give the person enough direction to guide them through the city. The bright light patterns on the buildings create the mood that New York is really the city that never sleeps and the viewer is just witnessing that first hand. Overall, Kenna’s photograph of New York’s beauty is a memorable photo for its usage of patterns, diagonals, and the contrast between buildings in the foreground and the background.
The contrast of light and dark is lovely here and the buildings viewed from above do appear as diagonals. The view point of looking down into the city is an interesting one and unusual for most of us. I think the high angle of view is the most important characteristic of this photo.