MIASTA #ŻENAROWERACH //exhibition

To get to know a city one needs to ride across it back and forth on a bicycle, learn at least one local slang word, see cool hangouts, drink coffee at local specialty cafes, get to know a legend (not necessarily an urban one), see a few sunsets, and if possible sunrises. To play bike polo one needs to ride a bicycle, find a group of two-wheel enthusiasts, a ball, mallets, large tough surface and two goals. After these preparations it's time to accept the basic rule - "don't overestimate rules", and you're ready to play. You don't know what bike polo is? C'mon! #ohonbicycles In his works Stan Baranski combines two things. First - LOOK! Look in a way to see (know) more. Watch cities and get to know their specifics. Second - PLAY. Take part in a niche sport that dwells in urban areas. The exhibition is a result of riding, playing and getting to know cities over the course of last couple of years. It is a subjective look at a few cities seen through the viewfinder and from a cyclist's perspective. Piotr Sikora

Come to the beautiful Pauza in Garden to see a few of my pictures in real life. Exhibition open all February. Opening Monday 1st at 7PM. #bethere #żenarowerach More info on facebook.

NYC at 45 degrees

Browsing through some old pictures I stumbled upon this little series. Never published it anywhere, so there you go. Pictures come from 2007 and 2008 (I think.) Just seeing the Big Apple from a proper perspective. Also, these are my first years shooting digital. It's been three years since I was in New York and I'm really starting to miss the place. <3 NYC !

walkers on the bridge

Walkers enjoying a hot September afternoon on the Brooklyn Bridge walkway. This picture was taken in back 2007, one of the first pictures I've ever shot with a DSLR.

nyc: esb and times sq.

Another shot from the "Top of the Rock". Empire State building in the distance (with Downtown Manhattan in the background), and the lights of Times Square on the right side.

nyc: texting from the air

A guy glued to his cellphone at 260 meters above the street. "Top of the Rock" at the Rockefeller Center in Midtown Manhattan. Check out how incredible this building looked like in 1933 here.

nyc: esb

Gotta take postcard shots as well, right? Well, maybe not exactly postcard but pictures of touristy places, like the Empire State Building. Taken from the very top of General Electric building at the Reckefeller Center (so called "Top of the Rock".) A few more shots from this roof might be coming up soon.

nyc: hi, beautiful

I was just passing by this fence at Sixth and West Houston and didn't ask, but apparently it was some sort of performance / an artwork / lover's message / just someone trying to brighten up others' day.

nyc: pearl art supply and jammed canal street

View of the Pearl Art and Craft Supply shop on Canal street, from the roof on Mercer street in SoHo. Canal is one of the main crosstown traffic corridors, therefore it's nearly gridlocked most hours of day and night. One of the problems of Canal street is trucks coming back to New Jersey from Brooklyn. They come in through a distant Verrazano - Narrows Bridge, but when they're coming back they're facing toll on the bridge westbound. Instead, they travel all the way through Brooklyn, across Manhattan bridge, and eventually Canal street, supposedly, one of Downtown's main shopping strips. The city seriously needs to rethink putting tolls on the East River bridges.

nyc bike polo

They mostly play on Thursdays in "The Pit" at Chrystie and Broome. Check 'em out at nycbikepolo.com.

nyc: astor place subway

Different borough, different kind of Subway station. Astor Place station is relatively insignificant (only "6" local train stops here), plus it's really easy to confuse uptown and downtown entrances at the first time. Manhattan, NYC.

nyc: coney island

Coney Island, actually a peninsula in Brooklyn, NY is a neighborhood and a beach with a miles long boardwalk. It's also the last station for a couple of NYC Subway lines. Despite what one might judge from this picture, the station is a state of the art building, fully solar-powered, wheelchair accessible etc.

nyc: hiding from rain

Rainy night on the West Side of Manhattan, pedestrians seeking shelter under hot-dog vendor's yellow-blue umbrella. Also, my three hundredth post! Happy anniversary to myself.

nyc: tenth

Tenth avenue at West 17th street in Manhattan, looking north, taken from the High Line. Although I didn't bring my tripod, I managed to get a long exposure shot.

nyc: looking west

New Yorkers tend not to know what's beyond Manhattan, especially in the West (Brooklyn is East, right? :) They do know there's New Jersey and, eventually, California, though what's between the two is pretty much unknown. Here is my favorite Steinberg's drawing that nicely visualizes how they see beyond Manhattan. Taken from the High Line on a warm, September evening last year.

nyc: the exhibitionist

The Standard hotel New York overlooks the High Line park literally (it's standing over the elevated park). Due to it's huge, non reflective glass windows, one can see more than they'd like to walking up or down the High Line. Check out this short article about the issue in the NY Mag.

nyc: across the bridge

So far I've uploaded pictures of the Brooklyn Bridge, the entrance to the walkway, eventually the walkway itself, at night. They were repainting the Bridge last year so shooting possibilities were limited due to construction fences. But then again, It was an interesting sight and kind of an unusual photo opportunity. Unfortunately, my camera doesn't take good pictures in low light, I so need to get a new body!

nyc: this way brooklyn bridge

Neon guiding pedestrians to the Brooklyn Bridge walkway. the entrance is hidden beneath one of the bridge's on-ramp so they've decided to brighten it up a little. New feature on the blog! You can now "like" each individual post on stanbaranski.info (as long as you have a facebook account)! Just click on the post title to go to the post page and click "like!" below a description.

nyc: sidewalk art

Continuing a short series of Brooklyn. Street Sidewalk-Art on one of the side streets off Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg.

nyc: chained meter

Playing with my 50mm lens... Somewhere in Brooklyn Heights.

nyc: the bridge

The most obvious and obligatory shot of the most famous bridge in New York. As a matter of fact, I did take pretty much the same picture a couple of years ago, and it went online, but I'm too lazy to look it up now :)