This past weekend was the anniversary of September 11th and amongst all of the remembrance, it's a New York City tradition to have the tribute lights that shoot into the sky from downtown Manhattan. A few years ago I went for the first time to actually shoot photos of these lights but never got a chance to be right up next to them and it was something I had to do.
I met up with a few friends at the 9/11 Memorial to experience the lights but didn't realize that they weren't actually at the memorial. We had to hunt them down and found them blasting from a rooftop of a parking garage by battery park. If my past trips to LA have taught me anything, it's that you can get to any parking garage rooftop for cool photos. So we did just that.
We had a pretty decent view from the far side of the roof but had to get closer so we made our way around to the other side where we clearly weren't allowed but tried anyway. As we stood directly in front of the lights, the guards and workers there obviously saw us but didn't say anything so we continued to shoot. As I tried to sneak around to the other side, a lady yelled "HEY! Congratulations on getting up here but you're not supposed to be here. I'll give you a few minutes, though." I didn't get to explore anything besides this side but we still go to be right in front of the iconic lights. Shortly after, they shut the lights off one by one and it turns out they only had it on for about an hour while they were testing them for the weekend.
This image got a lot of love on Instagram and a few reposts including one from IG_NYCity. Definitely one for the books!
Sony A7RII, Zeiss Batis 18mm f.2.8 (iso2000, f/2.8, 1/50s)