Moira Ness
Canada
A city paused, beautiful without sound.
Night-time has always appealed to me. The sun sets and the
bustling city slows. People retire indoors to sleep and a hush
falls over Toronto, Canada. Lights are turned on and the
visual experience of a landscape setting, otherwise in
darkness, is transformed. Unseen spatial relationships reveal
themselves in the night lighting.
While Toronto sleeps, I create my art. Driving around
Toronto at night has led me to notice areas with intriguing
ambient lighting. I try to isolate and preserve these scenes.
I like to share landscapes that the public might not fully
recognize. They may associate feelings of familiarity with the
landscape, but only completely know the scene in daylight.
I create photographs of empty urban/suburban landscapes
and experiment with nocturnal light studies. Nondescript
landscapes are dramatized through careful composition and
light balance. The packed Costco parking lot, or brimming
city park, is captured after hours. Photos are shot after 12
AM to avoid having city activity crowd the frame. Usually a
single ambient source provides the spotlight lighting for my
photographs.
Harsh orange incandescent lights are cooled to match the
night’s temperature in my photo’s post digital manipulation.
Lampposts are erased to create a surreal atmosphere. The
sky and background are blacked out as the spotlight coaxes
focus to the middle ground.
NIGHTSCAPES




