COMMERCIAL photographer Joe Dodsworth swapped York for New York for five days, and the results of his first taste of the Big Apple can be seen at The Living Room from this week.

Billed as “York’s brightest new light in photography”, 20-year-old Joe runs his own business from The Smithy, Cundall, setting it in motion last September and going full steam ahead since Christmas.

It was at the end of last year that he took the chance for a quick break in New York, from Boxing Day to New Year’s Eve, greeted by a city under blue winter skies but so cold that “the breeze off the River Hudson cut right through you”.

He recalls his first impressions of landmarks so familiar from films and television shows. “It’s hard to take in, but everything I saw I wanted to take a picture of!” says Joe. “It’s a very striking city and there’s so much history…how many people must have stood in the same places that I did?”

From his portfolio of images shot at day and neon-lit night – “I didn’t really use flash, just natural light” – Joe has selected his favourite scenes of high-rise streets and New Yorkers.

Explaining the exhibition title of A New Sound In What We See, he says: “I’ve worked closely with many up- and-coming bands nationally and drawn wonderful inspiration from some of the very best. Every great band looks for a ‘sound’, a sound that is unique and inimitable; similarly I’ve tried to create a unique ‘sound’ to my work, creating an exciting effect that is both flattering and slightly retro.”

Be it the street bustle of Starting Grid, filmed from a double-decker bus, or the solitary cyclist in State Of Mind, his photographs walk the walk as well as he talks the talk.

It is a confidence that has marked out his photographic talent from his Boroughbridge High School days when he first undertook wedding commissions, through the learning curve of working with Javan Liam in Harrogate and Jim Poyner in York, to establishing his own business for weddings, rock bands, hotel publicity, Stoner Soup design agency and more besides.

And where will he be this weekend? “I’ve got a couple of weddings to do,” he says.

Joe Dodsworth’s photographic exhibition, A New Sound In What We See, runs at The Living Room, Bridge Street, York, for six weeks from today. The work is for sale at £125 to £195.