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.

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).