This photo was particularly influenced by two O’Keeffe paintings from her time in NYC, almost a century ago (during her Precisionist period). She lived (with Alfred Stieglitz) in the building at the far left.

See
https://americanart.si.edu/artwork/manhattan-34289

and also
https://collections.artsmia.org/art/2725/city-night-georgia-okeeffe

This image plays with the boundaries between realism and more abstract schools like Precisionism and Cubism. While it’s a realistic image in the strict sense that it’s a straight, basically unaltered photograph of buildings, it deliberately omits elements that might distract from the abstract lines and and shapes that make them up. The black sky (aided by the IR exposure) and harsh, almost threatening diagonal shadows add to the unreal feeling.

This was captured early afternoon on a clear day with a Rodenstock HR Digaron-W 50mm/4.0 (@ f/7.1) lens, Phase One IQ4 150 Achromatic Back (@ ISO 200) and Phase One XT camera (10mm vertical shift). 760nm IR filter, which effectively blackened the sky.

This is an abstract view of modern midtown skyscrapers, as perhaps Georgia O’Keeffe might have seen them. The composition is a nod to the Precisionist school of a century earlier, emphasizing the lines and essential geometry of the buildings.

Another bridge just to the south, named for a different NYC borough, often gets more photographic love, but I think the Manhattan Bridge deserves respect, too.

Captured with a Rodenstock 50mm/4.0 HR Digaron lens (@ f/5.0) and the Phase One IQ4-150 back, shifted vertically by 12mm.

This is a straightforward, somewhat abstract, composition, emphasizing scale and lines. It converges out of sight below the foreground pier, suggesting an infinite roadway.

I shot this several times, day and night, and the nighttime image, in which the steelwork under the bridge is closer in brightness to the sky, was much more interesting. The cloudy night helps, too.

@karlauerbach@sfba.social I’m more interested in shapes and lines than in colors.

This is an image that works best at the highest resolution. The Rodenstock 135mm lens has extraordinary edge-to-edge sharpness and a general lack of distortion that makes it especially well suited to wide stitched panoramas like this one.

@SteveBellovin@mastodon.lawprofs.org Ticky tacky is an approved construction material for earthquake zones, evidently.

Captured with the Rodenstock 138mm/6.5 HR Digaron-SW lens (@ f/7.1), Phase One IQ4-150 back (@ ISO 50, 1/125 sec), Cambo WRS 1250 camera. Stitched panorama of two images, shifted left and right +/- about 18mm.

This view reminded me of Malvina Reynolds’s famous 1962 song (though she was inspired by another San Francisco neighborhood - Daly City). If you look closely, the houses don’t quite “all look just the same”, but somehow, on the hillside there’s more uniformity than there is up close.

Part of my “slightly better versions of the pictures of local attractions you might find hanging in a cheap hotel room” series.