A Day in Brooklyn

Escalating Art (2013)

Color Adds Life (2013)

For this post, I wanted to share some photographs from my recent trip to New York. I went with my school: Barrett, the Honors College from Arizona State University. For the first few nights, we stayed in Brooklyn and took the subway to get to New York City. I took tons of photographs and plan on sharing quite a bunch for the next posts or so. I went with a group of wonderful students and had a great experience. Brooklyn, New York is home to over 2.5 million people and is considered the 4th most populous city in the US. It is extremely urban and covered with art. The streets are not clean and the walls are covered with graffiti. The pavements are old and the roads are worn down. It feels spooky, as though it is every one for themselves. I tried to capture these feelings in my photographs. For Escalating Art, a once red wall and steel platform have been invaded by graffiti and transported into a symbol of urban life. It is tough, it is rough, it is hard to survive. These artists had to fight for the space and make do with what they have.

Covered Walls (2013)

 For Color Adds Life, I wanted to show how graffiti can help a place and be good. In this scene, the pavements are worn and trash is about, but there is one thing going for this area, the rainbow wall. This wall of colors adds a sense of happiness, pride and free expression. This once depressing area has now a shining light. Art and color can really bring life to an area. On the other hand, graffiti can also hurt a space and make it appear broken.

For Covered Walls, the building appears to be run down and trashed. The art takes away from the structure and the structure has not been cleaned in ages. Broken Down also gives off this vibe. Instead of graffiti being art and adding liveliness and character to a building like in Color Adds Live, the builds are invaded by pointless markings. Writing a name or word to mark up a building does not help the building. Instead, markings such as those trash up the building and prevent others from properly cleaning the buildings. The markings are permanent and symbolize the everyone is for themselves ideas. Not thinking of others, this markings are thrown across the buildings and the beautiful of the brick work is diminished.

Sadness and Freight (2013)

Sadness and Freight also captures the spooky, alone feeling in Brooklyn. In this shot, no one is outside and only a hanging stuffed animal is seen. It is very grim and unsettling. Why would someone hang a stuff animal and why are there no people? Spooky.              

Broken Down (2013)