25 November 2009

empty spaces

A while ago I saw a collection of photos of Hong Kong where the photographer had taken photos of the city in such a way that it did indeed look not only deserted, but abandoned. His technique was simple, but rewarding - he just used a telephoto lens, picked a spot and just waited and waited until everyone cleared off from the desired shot, sort of like inverse bird-watching. I wish I could remember where I saw the photos, as it was a really great set.




It's not an unexplored theme though - this gentleman took photos of an oddly abandoned looking London by scooting around on a bike on Christmas morning. There's a whole group on flickr that I've just discovered devoted to the topic of normal towns looking like ghost towns.

empty spaces: spin me round


One bloke who has done well out of the idea is Christopher Thomas. His formula was to get around New York in the predawn light with a larger format camera and he gets eerie, luminous images of New York (book link here).

empty spaces: sneaking away

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