The City That Never Sleep

This photograph was taken by Michael Kenna in 2006. The setting of the photograph is located in Midtown of Manhattan in New York City. The overall idea of this photograph is to show the viewers what it is like to be living in the city or being in the city. Michael Kenna captured the city life in black and white for a reason. Since this photograph is taken in a black and white style, it makes the subject in the picture the main focus of the photograph. With this photo we can assume that it was taken during a night time scenery because majority of the city building light is visible.  When looking at this photograph, we get this sense of being in the city itself. We can feel our self being in the street, filled with crowed people who is always in a rush to go somewhere. We can imagine the city street is always facing traffic. We can hear the vehicle horn going on and on all day and night. This is what people meant when they refer New York City as the city that never sleeps.

The way Michael Kenna capture this photograph is quite unique. From looking at the photograph, it pretty straight forward that he took it from a high angle point of view. The reason of him doing so is because he wanted to get a pretty good view of how a city looks like and how big it can be. Also depth of field is related to this photograph. Some photograph can be out of focus to show depth of field but in this Michael Kenna photograph it shows the entire subject is being focused completely to make the subject more revealing to the viewers. These elements that Michael Kenna used allow the viewers to pin point what’s the main idea of the image is about.

http://www.michaelkenna.net/gallery.php?id=14