24 Hours in New York City

They say that New York City is the city that never sleeps and earlier this April I set out to see if it is true.

The 24 Hour Project is an annual photography project that connects photographers from around the world. For 24 hours, participants are asked to photograph and post images that share the human experience in cities all while supporting NGO’s and charities.

This was my second year participating in the project and I find it to be an incredible way to learn more about a city and the people that call that city home. I’ve been to New York several times over the last few years, always enjoying the city’s energy. I like how different it is as you move from borough to borough and this project, these 24 hours, certainly deepened that appreciation.

At the stroke of midnight, I began the project with friends in the Upper West Side, walking through Columbia University’s campus. There, on the grounds outside the main library I found a diverse group of students playing a rousing game of soccer. I stayed and watched and after getting my photos, I headed down toward Times Square where I would spend the next few hours leading into morning.

What I really love about this project is that it can give you the opportunity to experience the seasons of a specific location if only in a day’s time. Times Square is almost a city unto itself, thousands of people, performers, taxis, horses and neon all mixing together into a collage of noise and colour. But at 2 in the morning, the crowds have faded and all you may hear is a soft saxophone playing in the red cast of a neon sign. Where a few hours prior your selfie would feature hundreds of background faces, now you stand in the center of it all with nobody to photobomb. Experiences at this time are still heightened. You see loving couples walking hand in hand after a long night out, weary workers heading home or younger tourists looking for the next place. I liked seeing the contrast in the space.

Throughout the duration of the project, we travelled throughout Manhattan by subway and riding the ferry to Staten Island. Watching the city wake up as the sun just barely reflected in the torch of Lady Liberty. We watched a pillow fight, people juggling and we got swept up in a Tartan Day parade filled with bagpipes and Highland dancers. In Brooklyn, we watched the sky over the city become a wash of pink and purple watercolours.

My favourite moment was near the end of the project. In Penn Station a performer was singing a collection of Prince and Bruno Mars songs. As his audience grew, the energy lifted and soon the entire station was dancing. People in their nicest clothes on the way from the theatre, tourists with their backpacks, homeless men and women dancing and singing with the biggest smiles. The police even stepping-up and taking turns in the dance off. It was a moment of complete unity, in a city of millions with every type of person together for those few minutes.

I wouldn’t class myself as a street photographer by any means but I do find value in trying different styles to heighten my own skills in the style of photography I enjoy. What this project teaches me is to really look around me, look for the moments that exist in our daily lives that contain nuggets of joy, humour or peace. It taught me to pay attention a little bit more to what goes on in the spaces that I’m in. That there is joy and happiness at all times, in the loud spaces and the quietest places.

Photography, at least for me, has always been my way of establishing my place in the world. It’s been my way of not only documenting what I see, but also trying to really capture an emotion or a feeling or a moment that may never happen again, and in this project, I like to believe that I have done that 24 times.