The Extraordinary Time Lapse of 9/11′s Tribute in Light.
Duncan Davidson’s latest project reveals that time-lapse photography can be a stunning storytelling tool. Davidson was kind enough to visit me in Sausalito California this past weekend and tell me how he brought his personal time-lapse production, A Tribute in Light, to fruition.
The idea came to Davidson a few months ago as he started to think about the ten year anniversary of 9/11. The project spun around in his head day after day with unshakable tenacity. After a few weeks of this he relented and purchased a plane ticket to New York. Now that he was tangibly committed to the idea he went about sorting out how he was going to hit a myriad of locations scattered around New York in a brief twelve hour period.
He started with a Google search for images of the lights at Ground Zero from different distances, heights and perspective from around New York. Then he in essence reverse engineered the images he discovered. Landmarks that could be seen in the found photographs were overlaid on Google Earth. A shooting map started to evolve. But there was the problem of height. Some of the images that resonated with Davidson the most were shot out of people’s apartment windows.
Using the satellite view in Google he was able to drill down and determine which structures he could access that would provide the elevation he needed. It ultimately came to down to half a dozen roof tops and parking structures.
Davidson started shooting at sundown. He enlisted the aide of a friend with a car for the first part of the evening, until about 3 AM. And then he struck out on his own, on foot. Davidson says that this latter part of the evening was emotionally extraordinary for him. The project itself had given Davidson amazing footage in the fifteen takes that he shot. But it also gave him something that he hadn’t anticipated. Something indescribable that he maintains could only be understood by being there.
Have a look at Duncan Davidson’s piece below.
