Neo Noir: New York by Dave Krugman

By Dave Krugman,

For me, communication is a deeply visual language, regardless of the medium. A photograph is rich with meaning and depth of feeling, our stories are stratified in layers of light.

Writing has always held that same depth of experience for me, words are a scaffolding for the imagination to build upon. Just as I use my camera to explore and render images from the external world around me, I use my language to draw out worlds from within.

This visual ebb and flow between words and images has always been at the core of my creative practice, and I am excited to let those worlds overlap in this serialized body of work, a cyberpunk inspired, neo noir collection focused on the beating heart of creative culture- New York City.

This body of work represents my best images from a decade of candid street photography and exploration of the illuminated structure of the city I call home.

The Purpose

I’m astounded by the potential of blockchain to change the creative relationship with the internet. After all, the internet without art is an empty framework, it is the designers, artists, coders, and communities that make the metaverse a place worth being. To me, an NFT represents so much more than just a piece of art on the blockchain. They are the keys that unlock the true value of our global interconnectivity, they are tokens of our mutual support, symbols of the symbiosis between creatives and their communities.

To that end, the proceeds from my sales from this first series on SuperRare will go to support the creative community I’m building at ALLSHIPS. 80 percent will go to support development for our creative community ALLSHIPS.CO, and 20 percent will be put into an ALLSHIPS Artist Fund.

The first piece in this series is a candid photography, taken at the confluence of so many circumstances. A rare foggy night on the Brooklyn Bridge, beams of light cutting through the haze- after a few hours of incredible atmosphere, I was able to create this street photograph of two strangers- 100 percent in camera. In the metadata, a story unfolds:

Of course I remember her. We burned so bright we crumbled, like a glacier cleaving, melting as we drifted out to sea. When I think of all the reasons I loved her, her laughter stood out the most, how it rose from some unknown place, to rise and pop on the surface like bubbles in champagne.

But her glow was the dark sort of light, the flash of fireflies, of glowworms, the phosphorescent blooms that trace the shorelines of undiscovered islands.

Within these concrete canyons, above, below, and under it all, there are many thousands of memories, deeply kept in the hearts of those who hold them. Memories can change, and do, for they are as malleable as the minds that make them. But the ones that hold, the moments that rise like peaks through the low fog of time, are the moments that will change you.