City skylines evoke mystery and story.
The city is a living thing. It has a rhythm, a pulse. It sleeps and wakes. It grows when healthy, but it also withers and dies back when sick or abandoned, and in that case, it may die all together and be no more. The city is a whole with interdependent parts. City skylines are the epidermis of its shared cultures—whether few or many—that respond to or ignore the challenges from within; and, yet always, rise together to meet the incursions that challenge the city’s well-being.
There’s a difference between imaginative city skyline stories and in the heart of the city stories. In city skylines we can romanticize the picturesque outlines of buildings, the impression of what might be. Is that a person at the window—no it’s a coat tree— or maybe a cabinet of furniture? We can call to imagine how the people in the buildings lead better lives than us. They are probably rich, happy, attractive, healthy and join in the company of lots and lots of friends and family! Sunsets on this city skyline or that city skyline are much prettier than where we come from. Oh the stories this city must hold! If only one could experience it over a cup of coffee on a beautiful rue or on a terrace over looking THE city celebrating a New Year’s Eve party…and…and….falling
Into the allure of City Skylines.
Walking along the Champs-Élysées during a busy lunch hour, I was cocooned by the din of French conversations, the whir of traffic and the flurry of passersby. I was a passerby, too, caught in the stream of lunch-goers. Did anyone see the dark skinned woman nursing a pre-school age child at her breast, both of them with hands out for a hand-out. Was this their norm? Such a sad, pathetic acceptance by all of us—myself, the woman and child included—on the beautiful Champs-Élysées that day in late spring.
Cityscapes
TIPS
Photographing city skylines takes some consideration. Because if you really think about it, really think about it, you are photographing more than just a skin. Lighting and the time of day or night, perspective, use of tripod—or drone—whether or not to include people: the usual ingredients that makes for better high-rise city skyline shots.
Interesting city skyline photos are born from getting yourself outside of the box. Many photographers shoot in the middle of the day at high noon, but unless there’s interesting clouds or a rainy day, high noon can spell disaster and make a potentially phenomenal cityscape photo look like any other tourist shot. Don’t be that photographer, unless you’re comfortable being that photographer. Photography World invites you to be more.
Photography Credits
Photographer Gale Han
Photographer Dave Meachum
Photographer Brian McKnight