CROCKER

nodalpoint:

shanghai-wfc-view-dusk

[by Raphael Olivier]

This photo looks fake and I mean that as a compliment. It’s an incredibly well-composed photograph. There is focus, there is depth, and you think it’s monochromatic, except there is that bright red neon sign down there telling you, “Hey! I’m real and I’m contemporary!”

This photo looks like concept art for a Blade Runner sequel. The vignetting, real or enhanced in post, is my favorite part, because it is specifically drawing your eyes to the only OPEN space in the photo, in the city’s sprawl. Meanwhile, you can’t see anything but concrete and smog and the water looks the same color as the concrete.

The smog is creating a distance haze effect that looks like a digital artist didn’t want to render out all the texture on every building, but the reality is that the particles in the air are just getting thicker and thicker, further and further away. 

And then, at the very top left, there is this red-orange, that I hope is the sun, trying to burn through it all and make the city grow, but the sun just can’t…quite…get through.

But it’s trying.