Over the past 4 years the New York City Department of Records has been compiling an online database made up of rare photographs of “the greatest city on earth,” and now that database is available to the public. The compilation consists of over 870,000 photos ranging in subject matter from landmarks to crime scenes put together from a Municipal Archives collection of over 2.2 million photos. Read more…

While visiting New York City by himself, Serbia-based art director Marko Savic came up with an interesting way of creating “tourist” photos with himself in the frame. Instead of setting the timer on his camera, asking passers-by for help, or photographing his reflection, he decided to shoot self-portraits by illuminating his face and photographing it in various reflections.
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Street photographer Markus Hartel recently did some shooting on the sidewalks of New York City on a rainy day with a Kodak Playtouch rigged to his Leica M9 and 28mm Elmarit. The above video shows a point-of-view documentation of his walk along with the “keeper” shots that resulted.
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Red Peak Branding conducted an experiment last year in which they chained a fully loaded bicycle (bells, basket, lights, and the whole shebang) to a post on a busy New York City sidewalk. They then visited and photographed the bicycle every single day, resulting in the 365-photo time-lapse video seen above. What’s interesting is that the bicycle remains untouched for roughly 230 days, but once small parts start getting stolen the rest of the bicycle soon follows. This might have something to do with what’s called the “broken windows theory“.

(via Gawker)

A few weeks ago, Brooklyn resident Katie O’Beirne did a weekend project in which she left a disposable camera on a Prospect Park bench with a note asking passer-bys to snap a photograph. After getting the film developed and finding some cool photos, O’Beirne decided to continue with the project, leaving disposable cameras in a number of other spots around NYC. The resulting photographs can be seen on a Tumblr page she set up called “new york shots“.
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This photograph by Jimmay Bones, titled “Eye of the City“, shows a mirrored cityscape of New York City. It’s neat how the Empire State Building is connected to itself, transformed into a giant pillar holding up the “sky”. The photo reminds us of Simon Gardiner’s vortograph of the Champs-Élysées that we shared recently.

You can find a higher-res version of this image here.

Eye of the City (via WE AND THE COLOR)

Image credit: Photograph by Jimmay Bones and used with permission

As a tribute to 9/11, Jason Powell revisited locations where photos of the attacks were captured on that fateful day and rephotographed them with the photos overlaid on the background.
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Frank Oscar Larson was an auditor living in Queens back in the 1950s who had a passion for street photography. Every weekend he would travel around the city armed with his Rolleiflex camera, photographing the things that caught his eye. After Larson died of a stroke at the age of 68 in 1964, his photographs quietly sat in a cardboard box for 45 years before finally being discovered by his son’s widow in 2009. They offer a beautiful look into what life in NYC was like half a century ago.
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We’ve shared beautiful timelapse videos already for San Francisco and Toyko, and now here’s one of New York City. It was shot by Josh Owens using a Canon 5D Mark II (with the 14mm 2.8L, 24mm 1.4L, 50mm 1.2L, and 70-200 2.8L), and a Dynamic Perception timelapse dolly.

Joe Wigfall is a photo enthusiast and street photographer that won WNYC’s Street Shots Challenge back in 2008. This is the same contest that created the behind-the-scenes video featuring Bruce Gilden that became pretty popular on YouTube. As you’ll see, Wigfall’s approach towards street photograph is quite different from Gilden’s get-up-in-your-face approach.

Joe Wigfall can see with his hands. Never lifting his camera to his eye, he shoots hundreds of photos during his lunch hour or walking to the train after work. A true artist, Joe brings a bit of himself into each of his photographs.

You can follow Wigfall’s work through his Flickr stream. Other interview videos are available through WNYC’s Street Shots page.