Or at least it’s facing east. I’m wondering whether I should even attempt this project. It’s the sort of thing that you usually need a grant to do, i.e. try and recreate how the needle may have looked when it was new.
Even as is, it’s been a difficult task to get this shot.
It’s made up of four horizontal camera positions, each taking three bracketed shots (for HDR).
This time I went out with a longer lens and shot with a 70mm so you’d be able to see the writing. So the file is pretty huge just in terms of stitching the four HDR shots together. It’s about 35 inches high at 240 dpi and has a 2 x 3 ratio.
So I may just paint it with broad swashes of color, and tune the leaves etc. Boy those leaves like to move in the wind even when you are taking three bracketed automated shots. It’s one of the reasons you don’t see HDR used too often when leaves and branches are blowing around. On the other hand, Photomatix is pretty good at resolving these “ghosting” issues.
At any rate, the Metropolitan Museum was behind me (the west wing) and flashing light on the Needle which actually was helpful for fill light.
As far as what to call each side, I’ll just refer to them by the direction they point – more or less. So the previous shots I posted were of the north side, and this is the east side – facing fifth avenue. The worst side in terms of wear and tear is the south side. Don’t know why… what did it look like when it first arrived I wonder.
I wondered as I walked back from an afternoon shooting this monolith – what it was that was fascinating. And I think it was the idea of the ideographs. Pictures that told a story within a sculpture that also told a story. Many stories.
I also have several scenes where the monolith is contrasted against so-called modern life. This thing had to be brief. In a way it was an early form of twitter. You only had so much room to tell your stories of kings, battles and celebrities.
It may just be a passing fancy.
The other aspect that intrigues me is that in order to make it more readable – you should really know where it begins and where it ends – and then chop it up so that it reads from left to right so you can really see all the glyphs. Imagine a large mural where you use map techniques to take the four sides and spread them out the way that the globe is made flat for maps.
In other words – it continues to be intriguing but at the same time I have prints to get out; and the mundane stuff of running the business to take care of. Always a balance between how far I go into the artistic world and the pressing financial needs.
When it’s finished, I could make it into a very limited edition. Oh, we’ll see. It’s also interesting as it is the precursor, or at least one of the precursors to the skyscraper which is very cosmopolitan. I’m going to read up on the history of the needle. And on top of the usual problems – I doubt if this thing is even close to being vertical. I want to go out with a plumb line the next time I go.
And with that longish preface, here’s what I’ve come up from today’s shooting:
The East Face (above)
The North Face (above)
As mentioned, these are huge files. Montages I suppose you’d call them? North Face. Both of these files are composed of either 12 or 15 files.
