12 Great NYC Photo Blogs (Plus 1)

By Daniel Dessinger

April 18, 2008

Photo by Quarlo.com

I’m a sucker for NYC photo blogs (PBs) because I love the Big Apple but I never had the chance to live there on a long-term basis.

So NYC photo blogs are how I try to get my regular fix of things-New-Yoark.

With every photo I remember once again how much I love this sultry, chaotic, and majestic Mother of All Cities.

Here is a short list of my top favorite NYC PBs, plus another which has nothing to do with NYC but one you should really support by visiting.

1) Lightning Field

The granddaddy of all NYC PBs as far as I’m concerned. I have no idea for how long David F. Gallagher is keeping up this site. He is a freelance journalist who is published in some serious outlets including New York Times.

From time to time he takes us to different parts of the world but he is mainly a New Yorker. Follow him and he’ll take you to the corners of NYC that you never knew existed.

2) Quarlo

Owned by Todd Gross. This blog unfortunately stopped back in December 2006. But his archive is still amazing.

Probably the most self-aware stylist of them all, Quarlo managed to come up with the exact burnt color-palette with stinging greens and harsh yellows that to me conveys the daily struggle of life in NYC. Yet a lot of his photos reflects his own sense of visual humor as well.

I’ve sent him an e-mail to see what’s going on with the site but he didn’t answer. Worth a bookmark.

3) Satan’s Laundromat

A unique photo site specializing in the signs, graffiti and symbolic oddities of NYC. Also stopped in December 2006, unfortunately.

Most of these blogs are works of love and hard to keep them up when nobody’s paying you for your time, equipment and the overhead. You start with a camera and start roaming the streets like a drunk person; an artist drunk with the lust of life. Then, eventually, "life intervenes" and you find yourself a day-job with a steady paycheck, I guess… Goodbye camera.

4) Slower

Another once-great PB that is now over. By Eliot Shepard.

You can however now enjoy Shepard’s photos over at http://eliotshepard.com/ Check out his HORIZONTAL scrolling photo-bar. Fancy, eh?

5) Blue Jake

Still going strong, thanks god. A rich collection of amazing snapshots from Brooklyn, and other fine boroughs of New York.

6) Laura Holder

Gone! What a pity. It’s a silly directory now… What a waste of cyber space… There should be a law against such jarring domain transformations.

7) Joe’s NYC

Still fresh and live. Go Joe!

Mecca Pixel

What? Now it's a laptop computer store ??!! Sad and outrageous. It used to be a great photo blog.

9) NYC Photobloggers

A mega directory of all NYC photo bloggers. If there is anyone taking pictures of NY for over a year he or she is probably listed here.

10) Overshadowed

For those who like their photos large, unadorned, with no text. A site for the visual purists. A museum of fine arts, of sorts.

11) Rion

By Rion Nakaya. The only web site I know with a NU domain extension.

She is reporting from Paris for the last 2 years but gave us great panoramas of NYC in the past.

12) Infrangible

by Khoi Uong. Yes. Laudable.

Plus this:

13) Ziboy

A distinguished Chinese photo blog by Wen Ling. He is a guy who lives with his finger glued to the shutter release button of his digital.

I’ve seen photos on this blog over the last couple of years that made me wonder how the “Chinese authorities” allowed this blog to continue since Ling never hid his identity.

An honest photo appraisal of daily life in China (I think). Recently he published tons of photos from his USA visit (including NYC) but most of his archive is still about China.