Tent Camera Image: View of 1221 Avenue of the Americas Building Looking West from 1 Rockefeller Plaza, 33rd Floor Terrace, New York City

“I designed a visual device I call the Tent-Camera in order to be able to make pictures of scenery that could be projected via a periscope onto the ground below. In effect, this allows me to visually sandwich a view of what I am looking at with whatever the ground is made of. This device is an outgrowth of my other technique using Camera Obscura. To make this picture I got access to a balcony in Rockefeller Center from which I could see parts of the West side of Manhattan with the tall buildings on 6th Avenue. In my first attempts I had the view of the buildings projected onto the concrete floor but the results were dull because the concrete had no character. I put pieces of wood on the ground instead and that created a more interesting layering.

In all cases these Tent Camera images are all the result of what natural surrealism the camera witnessed. I don’t believe in digitally adding things that were not there.

I arrived in New York with my family in 1962 after leaving Havana as Cuban exiles. In a deep emotional
way New York has always felt like my second home where I first began to grow into an American, so it’s not
surprising that I keep going back there to make pictures.”