Story
I was on a mission when I took this photograph.
Just not the mission of this photo, however.
When I first arrived in New York City, I emerged from the subway and found myself surrounded by the towering buildings of Manhattan. I took a quick photograph to post on Facebook—nothing particularly artistic, just a way of saying, "I'm here!"
Then I looked at the photograph.
There was a traffic light right in the middle of it.
At first, I thought it ruined the picture. Then I had a different thought:
No matter where I go in New York City, there are going to be traffic lights.
Why not make them the subject?
That became my New York City traffic light project. The idea was simple: photograph the distinctive New York traffic lights while incorporating something interesting behind them—a landmark, a building, or some other recognizable part of the city.
For this photograph, I was trying to get the Statue of Liberty.
That turned out to be surprisingly difficult. There aren't many traffic lights near the waterfront around The Battery, and the ones I found weren't positioned in a way that allowed me to create the composition I wanted. The traffic light pointed upward while the Statue of Liberty sat off in the distance at an entirely different angle.
Then I noticed the church.
The building was the Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton Shrine. I looked at it and thought
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