Stars In The City That Never Sleeps

Five years ago I and four of the wonderful ladies that I met in the photography workshop in Hawaii that spring ventured together for a long week-end of photographing as much of New York City as we could cram into four days. The longest of those days was this one where we started at the Brooklyn Bridge before dawn and ended at Times Square near midnight. I walked well over 22,000 steps that day and took over 300 pictures. It was an amazing experience and one that I will always cherish. This was the first time that I had ever purposely tried to create stars from street lights. Living more or less in the country and having mostly been a landscape photographer up to that point, I hadn't really had the opportunity to try that before. This image of rush hour traffic on the bridge not only has street light stars but also some of the oncoming car lights have a star effect, too. With this imagine I accomplished what I was looking for and then some. I love the light trails of the cars which give a sense of the frenzy associated with rush hour. The starry street lamps, however, are above all of that and seem restful in comparison. For that reason, too, this picture was a perfect choice to include in the Red movement of my music video. (You can access my video by going here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXMSqHsCCGM). I have tried to show in the last few days how creating photographic star effects is a wonderful way to add to the story in an image. Sunstars and light stars can be subtle additions or they can be part of the main stage, whichever. But either way, like the stars in the heavens, they should be used to enrich the whole composition.