New Haven Green

Author's Comments

Three churches in a row is an unusual thing to find at the center of an American city, and the New Haven Green is worth visiting for that fact alone. They sit close enough that you can frame all three in a single wide shot from Temple Street, but they are different enough in style that the composition does real work. Trinity is Gothic Revival, all stone and pointed arches. Center and United are Federal, brick and white-trimmed and quieter. The contrast between them is the photograph. Morning is the time. The churches face roughly west, which means the early light comes from behind you and lands cleanly on the facades without the harsh shadows that an afternoon sun would carve into the stonework. I have stood on the Temple Street side at eight in the morning in late October, when the elms on the green were half bare and the light was raking across Trinity's stone in a way that pulled out every detail of the carving. That same light makes the white steeples on the Federal churches read almost luminous against a clear sky. The Green itself is harder to photograph than the buildings around it. It is a park doing park things, and it does not always cooperate with a camera. But the relationship between the churches and the open space matters. Step back. Let the lawn carry some of the frame. The 1638 date on this commons is not visible in any photograph, but the proportions are - the way the buildings sit at a respectful distance, the way the space between them breathes. That is what you are actually photographing here.

Gallery