2000 NEW YORK #shotonfilm

chris_parkes_ 2000 NEW YORK #shotonfilm Made with Steller

chris_parkes_ I had only ever seen New York in the movies. On the screen it was the coolest place on Earth. Everyone in the world knew the Empire State and the Twin Towers and Central Park. It was the centre of the world. Friends lived there. Fashion lived there. Photography lived there. Made with Steller

chris_parkes_ We arrived in New York at around 5am. The ship has crossed the Atlantic from Southampton in bad weather. Everyone had woken up early just to see Manhattan. We all leant over the ship railings, craning our necks to see our first glimpse of the city. There it was, those two towers standing perfectly upright on this small concrete island, swathed in the grey of an early winter morning. It was like seeing someone in famous in real life. It felt real and unreal. It was thrilling. Made with Steller

chris_parkes_ If you didn’t grow up in New York it’s hard to describe what it’s like to experience as a visitor. There aren’t streets there are canyons. There aren’t people there are masses, from every nation on Earth. Everything is bigger and faster than you.￼ You do not visit the city, you are carried with it. Made with Steller

chris_parkes_ I watched the clouds roll in over the East River and thought about the generations that had come here looking for a new life. Made with Steller

chris_parkes_ I walked back and forth across the Brooklyn Bridge, feeling small as I was part of thousands of people on that bridge making their own memories that day. Brooklyn Bridge Made with Steller

chris_parkes_ I tried to channel all the photographers who had inspired me to pick up a camera when I visited Times Square. Made with Steller

chris_parkes_ I put my chin against the gleaming steel of the Twin Towers and looked up and marveled at how they disappeared into infinity. How could humans could build anything so impossibly tall? Made with Steller

chris_parkes_ A year later I saw them burn and collapse and in my naivety I would would ask how humans could be so impossibly angry Made with Steller

chris_parkes_ This sculpture “Ideogram” by James Rosati blended and stood out in the plaza between the towers. It would be crushed under their weight as they imploded into the ground. Made with Steller

chris_parkes_ At the USS Intrepid I would see some of the aircraft I had so slavishly worshipped as a kid after I saw “Top Gun”. I juxtaposed this A6 Intruder with the Stars and Stripes, these fetishised icons I’d consumed so unquestioningly. Made with Steller

chris_parkes_ This is part of a photograph I was so proud of: this tattered flag lit brilliantly by the sharp early winter sun. It’s everything I believe America is: brilliant, flawed, larger than life. Made with Steller

CREATED BY Chris Parkes Chris is a photographer and visual storyteller. SHARE Made with Steller Download Steller to view and create the world's best travel stories. Visit Steller.co