Street view with the lights out

Ken Walczak from the Adler Planetarium in Chicago recently sent me a set of two cool photos I want to share. Here's what he had to say about them:

I got home after an evening event and didn't realize at first why there was such a different quality to the ambience of our neighborhood. It took a moment to realize that due to a film shoot, the city had turned off all the lights on the main streets. I walked the dog, said "Hi" to neighbors walking down the street, just as normal and safe as a typical night. I snapped some photos. I set the exposure to try and capture the visual quality of the experience (1sec f/3.5 at ISO 800). The lights came back on later in the night and I shot with the scene with the same settings.

This work by Ken Walczak is licensed under
a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

This work by Ken Walczak is licensed under
a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Animated version

In an area with significant skyglow, I have often found that you actually have the better vision in unlit areas (e.g. parks, rooftops) than on lit city streets. The reason alleys in big cities are dark is not generally because there isn't enough light for you to see, but because of either glaring lights creating more contrast than your visual system can deal with, or else because you've left a really bright street and your eyes haven't had a chance to adapt.

In case you didn't see it already, check out the other amazing photo of clouds glowing over the Chicago skyline Ken sent me a few months ago.