9 (or is it 10?) Layers of Night by Chipka
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Description
There is a strange sort of logic to city nights, and like most strange logics, it’s hard to describe. Nights in big cities seem to defy any aspect of language, even though there are whole books, songs, and movies made about them. I’m in the process—now—of reading a book that has nothing to do with night-time in a city, but I find myself thinking about the topic: this is due, in part, to the challenge in the Writer’s Gallery, here on Renderosity. It is due, in part, to my idle perusal of the William S. Burroughs novel, Junky. Very little of that novel takes place at night, but it has a kind of odd, nocturnal feeling to it.
While thinking about nights in big cities (perfect and imperfect nights) I found myself rifling through images I’ve stored. I’m no stranger to night-time photography, and I’m no stranger to nocturnal stories; but because of the challenge over in the Writer’s Gallery, I find that I’m driven to experience something different, at least on the surface, in regard to the night. This image, seems to touch on some of that. It’s a layered image—yet again—and three of the layers are straight-shots of images already in my gallery. I’ve deviated from the 6-layer thing, and this particular image contains nine distinct layers, and a few manipulations that may actually fragment those layers into sub-layers of a sort. I was rather tickled by the complexity that emerged, a kind of complexity that borders on absolute, muddled chaos: but it doesn’t really cross that line…for me, at any rate.
The near-chaos in this image seems to touch on something at the back of my mind: something to do with cities, something to do with the kind of feverish, troubled and troubling sort of milieu embedded in the prose of William S. Burroughs. There is a story here. Somewhere. Somehow, but I can’t quite get a bead on it. That, I think, is what brings me to contemplations of the night in any big city: there’s something there…somewhere…somehow, but it’s often impossible to define; it defies language and it becomes an experience that can only be felt or sensed in ways that have nothing to do with communication. Writers/painters/photographers/musicians/poets have all attempted to capture this odd, shapeless thing, and many of them (John Rechy, William S. Burroughs, James Baldwin, William Gibson, Samuel R. Delany, Orhan Pamuk…and others) have managed, sometimes beautifully, and yet something else remains, something that no one has written, as yet, and maybe it can’t be written. Who knows? At any rate, it’s inspiring something only I don’t know what, but I’m certain that this image has something to do with it.
Somehow.
It’ll be interesting to see where this goes.
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As always, thank you for viewing, reading, and commenting, and I hope you’re all having a great week. I have a lot of catching up to do, and I hope to accomplish at least some of it.
Comments (11)
Wolfenshire
The City night is a place of magic, and terror, hope, despair, accusations, and forgiveness. The night; akin to that of a living thing, breathing and full of life. Though, my favorite time of night is that quiet, peaceful time, right before the dawn when light just begins to return to the streets and the city sleeps for but a moment before it awakens again to a new creature, the City day, and the thunderous volume of voices that give it's own life.
jendellas
I do like these pics that you do. x
helanker
What a feast in light, colors and reflections. It is such a beautiful Image. You are so great at this... too. Love it !!!!!!!!!
Faemike55
Outstanding work in the layers each city has its own night-time story
PREECHER
the witching hour is my fav time of nite...if I make it that long...lol this is a very powerful image. good to hear from u. chills and thrills
photosynthesis
A great layered shot & I agree with you that it doesn't cross the line into muddled chaos. It seems to be overflowing with light & electricity & captures the stimulating atmosphere of big cities at night very effectively...
auntietk
Yes! This is just right! This is what it feels like to think about something that has a lot of parts. They all layer up on each other, creating a separate reality, something different than each piece has on its own. Like in a movie when they want to convey a series of romantic moments, and they all run into each other in memory, as if they happened one after the other after the other, rather than days or weeks apart. I can make that happen if I think about a trip we've taken. Sort of mental cinematography, which is weird, because I don't actually like movies. So THIS is perfect! It's like a still movie. I love it!
MrsRatbag
This feels like a city at night--any big city, that has a lot of lights and activity; almost overwhelming but with a sort of pattern that can be read and understood. Well done!!
kgb224
Amazing work my friend. God bless.
brewgirlca
Another artist said that he does not try to photograph what he see but rather what he feels. And that goes for me and you too. My most realistic shots are often black and white and what can be more unreal than seeing the world in black and white? Maybe the essence of night work is that our main sense is probably sight and at night this sense becomes limited. We are forced to use other ways of knowing and this makes us feel uncomfortable. On top of that, our cameras are perfectly fine working at night. They see what we cannot see and so night photography is just naturally unreal. And there is no objective way of judging the reality of a night time image. There are so many possibilities, shutter speed being an obvious one, but play with your f stop while keeping shutter constant and you will see a totally different view of the world. And do we have to talk about ISO and grain? Night is the perfect time to play for those of us who do not limit ourselves to photographing reality but rather a feel.
JuliSonne
Many individual moments will in the overlays to a single VOLATILE moment. The lights the neon sign jumps at me and whizzes past. I see people, I hear they in passing. They laugh and the words, I perceive as noise. All just short snapshots. As flashbulbs or like a movie in fast motion......It builds a tension than when I'm driving down a hill with no brakes......now I wait on the blackout. I love this image.