“The city is a fact in nature, like a cave, a run of mackerel or an ant-heap. But it is also a conscious work of art, and it holds within its communal framework many simpler and more personal forms of art. Mind takes form in the city; and in turn, urban forms condition mind.” Lewis Mumford
Weekly Photo Challenge: Urban… Os Gemeos mural in Boston
Weekly Photo Challenge: Urban… The need for attention on Wall Street, NY
Weekly Photo Challenge: Urban… that distinct shade of yellow transportation in NY
Weekly Photo Challenge: Urban… The street vendor in NY
“An urban area is characterized by higher population density and vast human features in comparison to areas surrounding it.” Wikipedia
I don’t live in an urban area anymore… I visit NYC frequently but I live in the suburbs, and the pace of life, the landscape and design/use of space differ greatly from that of the City. When I think Urban, I think crowds=human density, tall buildings, huge murals/art, food/merchandise carts, public transportation, and the accompanying noise that gives every major city a special quality.
“URBANITY, n. The kind of civility that urban observers ascribe to dwellers in all cities but New York. Its commonest expression is heard in the words, “I beg your pardon,” and it is not consistent with disregard of the rights of others. Ambrose Bierce
Weekly Photo Challenge: Urban.. housing density and homelessness
Weekly Photo Challenge: Urban
Weekly Photo Challenge: Urban
Weekly Photo Challenge: Urban
Major cities have their share of homelessness juxtaposed against the backdrop of huge and magnificent buildings; many of them residential complexes… The irony of it never fails to amaze me. How do we justify homelessness in the land of plenty? The answers are both simple and complicated…
“The car has become the carapace, the protective and aggressive shell, of urban and suburban man.” Marshall McLuhan
Weekly Photo Challenge: Urban… Transportation; public and personal
Weekly Photo Challenge: Urban
Weekly Photo Challenge: Urban.. Grand Central Station
Weekly Photo Challenge: Urban The Subway Station…
Access to all forms of transportation is imperative in a huge city and NY has many to choose from… I love Grand Central for outer borough travel. The Subway is fast and somewhat dirty- think big rats, and the buses are generally slow… However, it all works.
“They have no home town, urban life is standardized and they come from a place called Generica” John Perry Barlow
Weekly Photo Challenge: Urban… It’s about the people… Occupy Trinity Church/Wall St folk still around
Weekly Photo Challenge: Urban… Some of my students acting like typical New Yawkers
Weekly Photo Challenge: Urban… Occupy folk
Weekly Photo Challenge: Urban… Mike … another organizer
Weekly Photo Challenge: Urban.. The cops are people too.
The people are the salt of the earth and make a huge difference in the lifstyle and culture of any city. New York has the full range of fascinating people; including all nationalities and faiths. While the above isn’t fully inclusive of all the faces of NYC, it shows a portion of the range… More Later and I’ll be by to visit you too! More below!
“A peasant becomes fond of his pig and is glad to salt away its pork. What is significant, and is so difficult for the urban stranger to understand, is that the two statements are connected by an and not by a but.” John Berger
Weekly Photo Challenge: Urban… And about places too… Interior of Trinity Church on Wall Street
Weekly Photo Challenge: Urban… Grand Central
Weekly Photo Challenge: Urban… The vendor’s corner
Weekly Photo Challenge: Urban. The Trinity Church Cemetery… an oasis in the midst of noise
“Living in cities is an art, and we need the vocabulary of art, of style, to describe the peculiar relationship between man and material that exists in the continual creative play of urban living. The city as we imagine it, then, soft city of illusion, myth, aspiration, and nightmare, is as real, maybe more real, than the hard city one can locate on maps in statistics, in monographs on urban sociology and demography and architecture.” Jonathan Raban
There are so many hidden nooks and treasured places in the city. I have barely scratched the surface here. Although I lived in the City during my college years, I moved to Park Slope after I married, and then moved to the suburbs when the kids were due. I will venture out soon to document my old neighborhoods; the upper Westside and Brooklyn, but these and the shots above are not of them at all… Enjoy anyway and I will add more photos later. Thank you!
This is a pivotal time for urban regeneration. We must take a long term view. Richard Rogers
Have an awesome weekend! Thank you for stopping by! Hope you enjoyed this! What are your thoughts? What photos did you share on URBAN to fit the challenge? Was it easy/hard to find photos that supported your perspective on the subject? Were you drawn to certain types of photos for the prompt? Do share? Thank you!
*Please bear with me as I continue to catch up on your blogs and commenting… Thank you all for your patience!
My fellow bloggers were equally creative with their selections. I listed several via Zemanta & WP Daily Post below. (I will update it and add more). We all appreciate trackbacks/ping-backs and Likes from fellow bloggers too! Check out how others interpreted the theme – URBAN – also below. ***
This post was inspired by a prompt from WP Daily Post: Weekly Photo Challenge: URBAN. This week’s photo challenge is guest hosted by Terence S. Jones of A Guy With a Camera. Read on for more about this week’s theme and his photography tips! Urban. The idea behind urban photography is to photograph your city and the streets where you grew up as they are.
Unlike the photoshopped pictures to which we are accustomed nowadays, urban photography presents a more direct, unaltered view of life. It is about documenting urban living space and how people adapt their environment to certain needs and vice versa. Urban photography shots provide cultural, social, economical, and ecological context all at once, and can capture social tension. Think of urban photography as a complement to street photography—it provides the context in which street photography unfolds. Share a photo that means URBAN to you!
Positive Motivation Tip: Urban life invites us to join in a constant dance of opposites; the beautiful and the ugly, rich and poor, glamor and gritty, fun and fury. Each pairing provides us with a slice of urban life and some legends… Take it or leave it!
PHOTO CREDITS/ATTRIBUTIONS: All Photos from my personal collection.
Until Next Time…
Ask. Believe. Receive. ©
Elizabeth Obih-Frank
Mirth and Motivation
Positive Kismet
This was a fascinating post, great photos generating too many thoughts to mention. I loved it.
Thanks for your feedback Leah! I appreciate the comment. It triggered a lot of emotions in me too… It evolved in an organic way and was not the intended plan for the challenge. I’m glad I went with it too. TY!
Eliz