From the day
Perspective: The Street Photographer · Sight
The Times Square neon bleeds across wet asphalt, catching the chrome of an idling taxi while the grit of a dying year settles onto low-rise jeans and oversized puffer coats. I adjust my lens to frame a group of girls clutching Bratz doll boxes, their silhouettes sharp against a shop window still glowing with the blue light of a Windows XP display. Chad Kroeger’s raspy voice groans "How You Remind Me" from a nearby electronics store, the song's heavy rotation practically the anthem of this cold December midnight. Some wide-eyed newbie with a fresh digital camera fumbles with his settings as the countdown looms, but I keep my eyes on the real story: the smoke rising from a manhole and the collective breath of a city waiting for 2002 to finally start.