Michael Wilkins
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Photograph looking down a Manhattan cross street at golden hour, the low sun bursting as a star between the buildings and throwing long shadows down the road toward parked cars and distant walkers.

Cross Street

New York · April 2021

1D X Mark II, 50 millimetres, f 22, 1/60 of a second, ISO 100

Manhattanhenge's poor relation, and it happens most weeks.

The Manhattan grid runs almost east-west, so a few times a week the sun drops into the end of a cross street and lights the whole canyon end to end. Stopped down to f/16 to hold the star, exposed for the highlights, and let the buildings on both sides fall into near-black. Everything in shadow here is genuinely that dark — the contrast between a lit street and a shaded one in Manhattan is enormous.