Ever want to hold New York in the palm of your hand, snow globe-style?
Belgium-based shutterbug Jasper Leonard photographed the Big Apple using the tilt-shift technique in his new book — which renders the cityscapes he captures enchantingly miniature.
Leonard, 31, shares some fun facts about his November release, “New York Resized” ($16.95; Lannoo Publishers).
Photographer Jasper LeonardJasper Leonard❶ Leonard took 23,000 photos for the book, or about 36,000 if you count time-lapses, over two trips of 10 days each. (About 122 ended up in the book.)
“I spent more than 10 days just making selections,” he jokes.
❷ Leonard climbed to the tops of observatories, traversed bridges and flew in helicopters and planes to nab the best shots. But he’s humble. “The most tough things I did weren’t all that spectacular,” he says. “I stayed in most observatories for half a day, to see the sunset and take night pictures. I also walked all the bridges over the East River. These bridges are high enough to give me a vantage point over the harbor, the boats and the parks.”
He sometimes clambered to the tops of buildings, but not often. “Because of the extreme safety regulations, and liability reasons, I saw very few rooftops in New York,” he says. “In Europe, it’s pretty easy to [shoot on roofs]. And the illegal places that I did see should remain a secret!”
Jasper Leonard❸ He chose the fascinating tilt-shift style for a reason.
“Tilt-shift mimics ‘macro photography’ by blurring the foreground and background of the image,” Leonard says. “Our brains know that this is a signal that the scale must be something small.”
❹ Leonard’s prior books focused on Antwerp and Belgium more broadly, but he picked New York City for his third project in order to reinvent a place familiar to global audiences through television and movies.
“The tilt-shift technique works best on well-known places, and Manhattan has a place in everybody’s mind. For me, even now, New York feels like a city halfway in between cinema and reality,” he says. “ I hope to give people a new look at a subject they already know, to make them see that a fresh perspective can be invigorating.”
