Can you imagine Times Square just for you?
If it were about representing the end of humanity, few cities would serve better than New York to show the emptiness, the chaos, the silence or the feeling of abandonment that would cause the disappearance of human beings from the face of the earth.
After he got us to imagine what it would be like to walk through the Puerta del Sol in Madrid without stress; to make us see what Trafalgar Square would look like without so many tourists and to allow us to cross the Shibuya zebra walk alone in Tokyo; the photographer Ignatius Pereira I had pending a city, I had pending empty of people New York.
Brooklyn bridge
“New York is the mythical city, It is the one with the most iconic places, the most cinematographic that we all know, that we all have very present and it was its turn for such an emblematic city”, explains Pereira to Traveler.es about his series loneliness new york (Loneliness in New York).
Through the 10 photos that make it up, the viewer walks through Central Park , enters the Oculus , visit the museum Guggenheim , walk the high-line , approaches the World Trade Center , observe the Radio City Music Hall of Fifth Avenue, contemplates exclusively the luminous panels of times square , marvels at the greatness of the silhouette of the Flatiron or is amazed to feel so alone in the emptiness Grand Central Terminal.
Although he acknowledges that he would like to return to New York to do other less typical stories and look for other frames more involved in the city, Pereira explains that he was very clear what were the emblematic places that he wanted to appear in his series, thanks to trips he had made some time ago and all the previous search work in social networks and study of possible settings in Google Maps.
And it is that emptying a city does not consist of separating people and shooting the camera.
Grand Central Terminal
Emptying a city is going to be done great pre-production work, to think frames and analyze light; of photographing the same place from the same point for approximately 15 minutes that allow everyone who enters the plane to move and change position; and of edit the resulting snapshots combining each one in such a way that all space is empty.
Or practically empty because in Loneliness New York it remains that mysterious person who travels alone through an unpopulated city . While in his series Empty Tokyo with this character Pereira wanted to reflect the hard-working nature of Japanese society, on this occasion the photographer confers all the protagonism to the tourist.
“New York is a city committed to and understood very well for tourism. For this reason, the photo of Times Square was very clear, with that man hallucinating seeing the neon lights”, he reflects.
Of all the images taken, Pereira has his favorites. “That of the Flatiron has been the clay pigeon shooting, highly sought after, very difficult and very successful. Unfortunately, as we now see the photographs, on screens, its magnitude is not appreciated; but big, in three meters, it's amazing”. He also highlights the Oculus , for its light; and that of the Central Station "because I choose places that have energy, places where something has happened and this is a coming and going of people, it is a pass through light and architecture”, he reflects.
Flatiron
In order to do this series, Pereira moved to the city at the beginning of March , thanks to a collaboration with the New York Tourism Office and Room Mate hotels.
During the two weeks he spent there, what surprised him most about New York on a photographic level was that “Natural light does not reach the ground because it is a city so high that it is very difficult. Therefore, it is a very complex photo because there is a big difference between the sunny part and the shadow part of the buildings.”
The positive part is that "everything happens very fast, people do not stop, it is not a space where people enjoy having a beer, it is a continuous coming and going and that makes work much easier”, he explains.
Ignacio Pereira has been surprising us for three years with these types of images. Three years that have given not only for many destinations, but also to 'keep an eye' and evolve technically. “When I get to a place, I try to give it a different frame to whom the whole world gives (...) It has evolved in the color treatment, framing and technically in the final reproduction, which is what surprises how it remains”.
And in this constant evolution, he is already planning other destinations that sound like ** Rome , Istanbul or Miami .** Until then, images can be purchased by contacting him through his website.
Oculus
And yes, the empty Oculus is tempting, but to give you an idea of the work behind this photograph, you can see the video of the day Pereira took the images on which he later worked.