Comments on: chris bickford – midnight kiss, avenue c https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/06/midnight-kiss-avenue-c-by-chris-bickford/ burn is an online feature for emerging photographers worldwide. burn is curated by magnum photographer david alan harvey. Sat, 18 Jun 2016 10:45:40 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.2.4 By: 10 Weird New Year Traditions All Over The World | Bodybuilding https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/06/midnight-kiss-avenue-c-by-chris-bickford/#comment-273860 Tue, 21 Jan 2014 11:28:10 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=3457#comment-273860 […] Night time HugIt is a tradition in the usa to talk about a sweet night time hug together with your partner or with anybody just in case you do not have one. This makes next season incredibly beautiful for you personally. We feel this practice brings real love. It washes away unhealthy reminiscences and fate in the past and marks the start of a brand new Year filled with love and existence. A famous movie, "Looking for A Night time Hug" is designed about this Year Ritual. […]

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By: 10 Weird New Year Traditions All Over The World https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/06/midnight-kiss-avenue-c-by-chris-bickford/#comment-82161 Fri, 31 Dec 2010 08:49:33 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=3457#comment-82161 […] Midnight Kiss […]

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By: jenny lynn walker https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/06/midnight-kiss-avenue-c-by-chris-bickford/#comment-47256 Mon, 03 Aug 2009 15:17:03 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=3457#comment-47256 I love it! The romance of it. Particularly the moodiness and the colours. But, clearly both guy and girl ‘know’ they’re being photographed. So perhaps a few moments earlier or moments later would have captured a touch more passion in the frame? Or you should have instructed the guy at least to take his hands out of his pocket, if it is an image taken with friends?! Hey, if you cover the two yellow street lamps with your fingers, check out the feeling in the image then! Not sure if that change in feeling is due to removing a distraction in the background or an imbalance in the composition… but it feels more intimate, more ‘right’ and ‘takes you there’… : )

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By: NoahD https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/06/midnight-kiss-avenue-c-by-chris-bickford/#comment-46005 Tue, 14 Jul 2009 22:14:00 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=3457#comment-46005 This is great.

Some people say the composition is a bit unbalanced, but I think its spot on! The buildings, the lights, the perspective.

Well done.

And I just noticed you have a lot of OBX shots. I’ve been a lot of places, but the Outer Banks is probably one of my favorite places in the world – maybe I’ll see you around there sometime!

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By: Tommy Huynh https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/06/midnight-kiss-avenue-c-by-chris-bickford/#comment-45681 Fri, 10 Jul 2009 17:55:51 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=3457#comment-45681 I really like this, some might call it cliche, the composition is a little unbalanced IMO, but it’s got strong aesthetics like all of your work.

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By: mjrisenhoover https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/06/midnight-kiss-avenue-c-by-chris-bickford/#comment-44803 Thu, 02 Jul 2009 21:29:18 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=3457#comment-44803 I like how the two “lovers” are positioned at the corner of the building in the background, I think this is what attracts me the most, and I am old and I really love this.

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By: gina martin https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/06/midnight-kiss-avenue-c-by-chris-bickford/#comment-44533 Wed, 01 Jul 2009 01:43:28 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=3457#comment-44533 what i like most are the lights in the background… the mood, the car headlights, the lights in the building windows, the green street lights, the store front lights… perfect mood and moment for a kiss!

nice work Chris!

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By: Patricia Lay-Dorsey https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/06/midnight-kiss-avenue-c-by-chris-bickford/#comment-44519 Tue, 30 Jun 2009 22:22:59 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=3457#comment-44519 Light, mood, color, moment, expression…it’s ALL there, Chris. What a terrific series you’re working on. Man, it is SO Lower East Side!!! Your color palette makes me salivate.

Great to see you in C’ville–just the first of many meetings I trust…

Patricia

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By: Mark https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/06/midnight-kiss-avenue-c-by-chris-bickford/#comment-44515 Tue, 30 Jun 2009 22:01:47 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=3457#comment-44515 Interesting image, Chris.

Like the series, ‘in the night’ on your site. Some of the indoor images reminded me of Clay Enos

http://clayenos.com/portfolio/more/night/night3/index.html

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By: michael kircher https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/06/midnight-kiss-avenue-c-by-chris-bickford/#comment-44512 Tue, 30 Jun 2009 20:48:07 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=3457#comment-44512 OK, that one worked. Damn, I lost an entire post.

Long story short… Chris, love the shot. And your photography.

Peace.

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By: michael kircher https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/06/midnight-kiss-avenue-c-by-chris-bickford/#comment-44511 Tue, 30 Jun 2009 20:47:02 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=3457#comment-44511 Testing…

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By: abele quaregna https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/06/midnight-kiss-avenue-c-by-chris-bickford/#comment-44510 Tue, 30 Jun 2009 20:43:53 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=3457#comment-44510 it’s a great shot, Chris. love the cold-warm mix of colours. I already saw it on your blog, but I missed the nice story behind it.

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By: panos skoulidas https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/06/midnight-kiss-avenue-c-by-chris-bickford/#comment-44508 Tue, 30 Jun 2009 19:32:54 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=3457#comment-44508 Go Chris
go Chris
go Chris…:)

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By: panos skoulidas https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/06/midnight-kiss-avenue-c-by-chris-bickford/#comment-44507 Tue, 30 Jun 2009 19:31:48 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=3457#comment-44507 There is no cars in Venice beach mom..
Just police cars and firetrucks..
:)

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By: Mom https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/06/midnight-kiss-avenue-c-by-chris-bickford/#comment-44506 Tue, 30 Jun 2009 19:11:50 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=3457#comment-44506 The wait was worth it.Reminds me of Paris,Rome and Venice!(Without the big cars!)Love this image.

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By: John Lizarazo https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/06/midnight-kiss-avenue-c-by-chris-bickford/#comment-44504 Tue, 30 Jun 2009 18:43:22 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=3457#comment-44504 this photo.. it’s great, perfect moment; just the right timing

you definitely have what you set out for when you say “old new york.” it’s the first thing that came in to my mind when I looked at this photo.. without reading any text; it was instant!

the lighting is fantastic, setup is perfect (attributed to you scoping out the spot and waiting, very interesting). I love the way the couple is positioned on the corner

the vanishing lines make this image so intense to look at. gahhh i love it

congratulations on such a well done photo

cheers,
JP

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By: chris bickford https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/06/midnight-kiss-avenue-c-by-chris-bickford/#comment-44503 Tue, 30 Jun 2009 18:25:16 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=3457#comment-44503 Hey folks, thanks for the comments. The setup of the shot was basically that I saw the building and the moon, and I pretty much sat there and asked people as they walked by (it was a quiet night and Avenue C is not a very busy street) if they wouldn’t mind being in my picture…I was there for about an hour and a half, I think…This couple, I didn’t really tell them to do anything, I snapped maybe five frames of them and this one was the best. They were obviously very hot for each other–I don’t know the full extent of their relationship because I really didn’t want to disturb them in their romantic evening. They very much took the whole thing in stride and walked on, wished me a good night, etc…What I like about the photo is the girl’s expression. She so full of anticipation of a kiss, you can almost feel her body tingling. But no, they weren’t models.

In the piece at large, I’m going for mix of a classical aesthetic with a bit of a film noir/comic book treatment. I want it to be very much “old” New York and “new” New York at the same time. Check out the “In the Night” section of the website for more photos. I lived on the Lower East Side about 10 years ago and felt a strange romance about the area. The crowd was very much young and hip, everybody’s in a band or working on a conceptual art piece or just hanging out being hip. There is an innocence about the whole place, no matter how many tattoos and piercings and black boots you see everywhere. For the most part, the kids are just young, well-educated dreamers from privileged backgrounds. The irony of the situation, which I have have yet to capture, and still haven’t decided how, or whether I will, is that they are living on stolen ground, real estate that once belonged to a large Puerto Rican community and a lot of criminals and drug-addicts. The old term for the LES is “Loisaida”, which is basically just Puerto Rican pidgin for “Lower East Side”…It buts up against the projects to the east, and Chinatown to the South, but all these different cultures barely notice each other. When I was living there, Avenue C was just a little sketchy, the border into the forbidden zone. Now it has been subsumed by the hipsters, there are some nice restaurants and cool music bars up and down the street, and even people from uptown come to dine and carouse there. It’s some kind of strange La-La land. There are few children, few families, and few people over the age of 40 living there. It’s expensive as hell, and yet kids in their 20’s working catering and restaurant jobs flock to the place, piling into tiny rooms that go for about $1500 a person in a shared apartment. It’s the epicenter of hip in New York, which is pretty much the epicenter of hip in the world, or so New Yorkers like to think. Williamsburg in Brooklyn, however, has begun to take over, probably already has; the LES is getting a little tame in comparison, a little yuppie-fied…

This couple aren’t exactly hipsters, and I’m not sure why one would have to have any appreciation, knowledge or care about hip-dom to appreciate their moment. I like to think of it more as an NYC version of Doisneau’s “Hotel de Ville”, or at least something in that vein. Just a brief moment of peace and bliss in the heart of a city that never stops moving.

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By: Jon Agnew https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/06/midnight-kiss-avenue-c-by-chris-bickford/#comment-44500 Tue, 30 Jun 2009 17:17:44 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=3457#comment-44500 Quick addition to my previous comment, I just noticed that the moon (also green) is obscured by clouds…another Gatsby parallel. The wonderful, idillic moment of this shot will end, and the couple will one day have to face the reality of each other. Beautiful.

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By: Jon Agnew https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/06/midnight-kiss-avenue-c-by-chris-bickford/#comment-44499 Tue, 30 Jun 2009 17:13:12 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=3457#comment-44499 First of all, really nice shot, Chris. Posed or not, doesn’t really matter to me. This photo captures the fact and the feeling. Makes me want to grab my wife and make out on the street.

I especially like the way the couple are framed by the traffic lights. It reminds me of the green light at the end of the dock in The Great Gatsby, representative of an idealized future and pursuit of the heart’s inner-most desires.

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By: Cathy Scholl https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/06/midnight-kiss-avenue-c-by-chris-bickford/#comment-44496 Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:25:11 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=3457#comment-44496 Very nice. Looking forward to seeing more of this project.

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