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Darkened Cities by Thierry Cohen is incredible.
Cohen is also a fine technician, who has practised digital photography for longer than almost anyone else.
But he is not practising for virtuosity alone. Cohen does not merely replace one sky with another for convenient photographic legibility. By travelling to places free from light pollution but situated on precisely the same latitude as his cities (and by pointing his camera at the same angle in each case), he obtains skies which, as the world rotates about its axis, are the very ones visible above the cities a few hours earlier or later. He shows, in other words, not a fantasy sky as it might be dreamt, but a real one as it should be seen.
One significant perspective changing event of the past 100 years is how civilizations have lit their cities with electric lighting such that the wonders of the universe cannot be seen. How much further along would civilization be if we could see the stars we can now only dream about visiting? This presentation is incredible because it shows us what we’re missing every night as we instead stare at bright LCD or LED screens. If you live in an area where you can see the stars and the night sky as unclouded by light pollution, make time in your evening schedule to just sit and stare out into the vast expanse of the universe.
