LIGHT/MASS is an ongoing series that explores alien-like urban landscapes found in cities across the United States.
I moved to New York City from my hometown in southern England during the Spring of 2020, days before the city shut down. With a background in commercial and live music photography I had intended to continue in those fields in the US but it quickly became apparently that those ambitions would need to be paused. However, eager to experience my new city and with most businesses closed, I walked and cycled through the almost empty streets, trying to get a sense of my new home.
There is a distinct difference in the tone and feel of natural light along the East Coast of the United States compared to the UK. It is harder and brighter, compared to a muted British light often filtered through low cloud. As I explored Manhattan and Brooklyn, and as I became attuned to a light quite different to what I was accustomed to, I also began to notice buildings which struck me as architecturally interesting and unsettling.
New York City contains a true mixture of building styles. Eighteenth century tenements, with their ornament and iconic fire escapes, are dwarfed by the shining glass monoliths of the new millennium. Jammed between them are the architectural leftovers of every decade between, some iconic and some decidedly not. I walked past most of these styles frequently but did not stop to photograph them, feeling as though I had seen them reproduced already so many times in my life. However, architectural anomalies, buildings overlooked and often slightly run down, flat expanses of concrete, stood out to me in the hard light of a sunny New York day.
I became fascinated with these strange-looking buildings I’d stumble across, unannounced in the middle of a residential block or looming suddenly when turning a corner. They felt to me like distinctly otherworldly structures, alien to the surrounding architecture and entirely unobserved by passersby. I started to seek them out, looking for oddity in a city slowly returning to normal.
