I find it abnormal to write about photography. It’s a visual medium that lacks words for a purpose. Photography is an art that transforms and includes you into a new world. Lou Reed is a street poet, musician and photographer that takes you on a meditative, raw, skyline trip of New York City.
I went to the Warhol Museum to view Reeds work. I purposely made myself start on the 7th floor of the museum, so as not to rush the experience. I walked through the exhibits entitled “Personal Jesus: The Religious Art of Keith Haring and Andy Warhol”. Not for me personally although nonetheless great art work.
Next, down I went to the 5th floor to Reed’s work. I turned in the gallery room and there it was, Photography by Lou Reed. I went directly to a shot of a gray cloudy sky with the red ambient glow of daybreak set on the New York City skyline. The horizon line was in the dead center of the photograph. This struck me as a compositionally poor decision at first. “Who am I to judge, and the rule of thirds was meant to be broken anyway”.
Then I noticed in the majority of shots, the horizon line was in the dead mid-center of the photographs and it got me thinking “what is the message of his composition”. Architecture and nature in balance are what the photographs represent to me. Reed’s composition showed equilibrium that his love for the city was not just man made, but made in balance with man and the environment.
I walked out of the exhibit room and sat on a bench across from Reed’s gallery to write down these words: “Odd, soft focus, dawn, dust, street poet eyes, backbeat, echo, moody, surreal, questioning, dark, shaky,
