Hasta La Ideas

Photo essay: New York photographer Richard Silver travels the world shooting well-known buildings over the course of a single sunset and splicing the pictures together to create a single image – a technique he describes as slicing time.

Silver’s Time Slice photography series is an ongoing project that began in the photographer’s native New York as an idea for a book and has evolved into a bigger project during his extensive travels for his job. Among the buildings he has “sliced” so far are Herzog & de Meuron’s National Stadium in Beijing, the Marina Bay Sands hotel in Singapore by Moshe Safdie, and Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia basilica.

In this essay for Dezeen, Silver explains the lengthy process behind the creation of each image, which involves taking up to 60 identically-framed individual shots over the course of an evening.

The idea behind the Time Slice project was to photograph iconic buildings over the course of a sunset, and assemble them to capture the changing light from day to night in a single image.

The project started in 2010 in New York, where most of my ideas start. I originally decided to photograph iconic buildings in the city with the intention of producing a book of individual photos chronicling the progression of the sun in the evening as the pages turned. But I quickly realised that I wanted to try something more complicated, and find a way to capture the sunset in one final image. So I decided to slice up pictures of the same building at different times and with different light qualities to show the passing of the day from left to right. I liked the results so much that I’ve just carried on doing it.

I’ve had a number of different jobs over the years – I’ve worked in computers and on Wall Street – but decided to go full time with my photography in 2011. Although the project started in New York, I am now a travel photographer so I visit a lot of different locations. Last year I visited 13 different countries.

Once I’ve chosen a place, I then figure out which building is iconic for the location; I always do some research on how important the structure is to that place to make sure it is the quintessential building. I try to do a Time Slice photo from each city I go to, to build as large a portfolio as I can.

I never really thought about the effect “time slicing” has on the architecture until I shot the Gateway to India in Mumbai. The light cast by the sunset on the Gateway was so linear to the structure that I needed to take extra photos so it would not interfere with what I was trying to accomplish. The vertical lines of sun, because of the other buildings, almost made some of my photos rectangular, with the lines of light going north to south and across the gateway.

I had the same feeling in Milan with the Duomo. What it does show in some of the marble structures is the beauty of the yellow colouring of the stone. The tones of glass structures tend to be less dramatic.

I find shooting at sunset much more enjoyable than sunrise. I always try and be at my location at least 45 minutes before the sun actually sets. I need some time to pick my exact spot, set up my camera and sometimes fight the crowds that might be there.

I set my camera up on my tripod and use a remote control to take the photos so that nothing moves the camera and ruins the final symmetry – every shot has to have exactly the same framing. I use a Nikon D800 camera and usually set it to aperture priority, which allows you to control the amount of light entering the camera while still using the device’s automatic shutter speed. I set the sensitivity at 100 ISO and my f-stop setting is between f8-f11.

I pretty much shoot at random, reacting to changes I observe as I stand in that spot – for example if light changes or someone moves within the frame of the image. Towards the end of the shoot, I usually change the settings to full manual mode for more control, as it gets very dark. I carry on shooting for about half an hour after the sun actually sets.

There’s usually around 40 to 60 images to process from each shoot, and I use around 36 in the finished Time Slice image. I load them into a programme called Lightroom to do a basic edit, and then finish off the process in Photoshop.

I need the weather to be clear when I shoot, with no clouds and no rain as these tend to obscure the changing colours of the sky – the bluer the sky when I begin the shoot, the better. When I first started the series in New York I went out on a pretty clear night, but then the clouds rolled in and it was just a waste of time. I’ve also tweaked my process over time and have gone back to three locations in New York to reshoot those buildings.

It does helps to get to the location on time – on a few occasions I’ve been late and missed the full spectrum of colour and light changes in the sky and across the building.

Finding the right spot to shoot in can be difficult too. Sometimes you don’t realise you haven’t got the right shot until you’ve already started. Too many people is one of my favourite problems. That happened in Dubai and I had to charm my way to the spot needed for me to take my photos.

I wish I’d figured this technique out before I went to Petra, Machu Picchu and Tokyo, amongst other places. I am dying to shoot the Eiffel Tower, which I feel was meant for this series, and I think I am heading to Moscow at the end of the month to shoot St. Basil’s and the Kremlin.

The post Richard Silver splices images of iconic
buildings to show the passing of time appeared first on Dezeen.

La corbeille de fruits PICK IT, conçue par des designers de l’Université Polytechnique de Valence : Iciar Gil, Empar Granchel, Belén Heredia, Rafa Megías et Miriam Pérez, a été présentée à la Biennale du Design de Saint-Etienne. L’idée était d’imaginer une corbeille permettant une récolte similaire à celle faite sur les arbres. Pour cela, ils ont utilisé 5 lattes en bois de châtaigniers reliées par des rivets.

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The bell tower of this monastery on the outskirts of Valencia features a ridged surface and darker tone that helps it stand out from the adjoining buildings (+ slideshow).

The Monastery of Santa Catalina de Siena is located in the Paterna district to the northwest of Valencia, and was designed by local firm Hernández Arquitectos for a community of Dominican nuns.

The new facility replaces a monastery that previously accommodated the nuns, which was positioned alongside the site in a suburban area close to a busy road and a shopping centre.

The building is designed as a modern and functional environment that is divided into two distinctly separate parts to reflect the different activities and requirements of its occupants.

“The program is based on the needs of a peculiar client, a congregation of almost 30 nuns whose customs, routines, and way of life is outside of what we are accustomed to working on,” architect Verónica Furió told Dezeen.

“The first step was to listen, learn and synthesise their needs in the architecture, linked to the proposals of habitability and design that we were presenting,” Furió said.

Two white blocks separate the building into the areas used primarily during the day and those occupied at night. The lower volumes surrounding a courtyard contain spaces including a library, community room, dining room, offices, and church, where the nuns spend most of their days.

A taller annexed structure contains individual accommodation units incorporating private spaces for rest and prayer. A terrace positioned on the top floor of this building looks out across the city towards the sea.

Straight lines and a minimal monochrome palette seek to emphasise the building’s simplicity and create an unobtrusive backdrop for the nuns’ lifestyle, as well as for a collection of furniture and relics dating from as far back as the 15th century.

“The white synthesises the premises of the functional program, creating a clean container that is pure, simple and timeless,” Furió added. “What we wanted to highlight is the content, with furniture belonging to the congregation representing several centuries of history.”

Prefabricated glass-reinforced concrete panels were chosen to give the exterior surfaces of the building’s various volumes a homogenous appearance and to aid the speed of construction.

Darker grey panels with an irregular ridged texture are applied to the surfaces of the bell tower, to signify its importance and create a landmark facing the street.

The vertical rhythm of the tower’s surfaces is continued by louvred metal shutters fitted outside windows on some of the facades.

Materials help to differentiate the private areas of the monastery from the church, where the nuns share Holy Communion with local residents.

Stoneware tiles used for flooring throughout the monastery’s main spaces are replaced in the church with glossy grey Macael marble, which adds greater tonal variation.

Glass partitions and modern pews for the congregation contrast with the traditional furniture and religious artefacts in the section of the nave where the nuns sit.

Paving stones also create visual segregation between the public and private spaces. Grey blocks form the surface of the parking area and approach in front of the building, while warmer tones are used for the courtyard and other areas within the boundary walls.

Photography is by German Cabo.

Project credits:

Architects: Pedro Hernández López – Hernández Arquitectos
Technical architect: Francisco Sánchez de Lara
Collaborators: Antonio Martínez, Ángeles Álvarez, Verónica Furió, Amparo Costa, Fernando Hernández
Engineer: Erso ingeniería civil y medioambiental SLP
Construction: Grupo Bertolín SAU

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features a concrete-clad bell tower appeared first on Dezeen.

We’ve created a new Pinterest board filled with the best examples of movie theatres, screening rooms and multiplexes from the pages of Dezeen.

Follow Dezeen on Pinterest | See more cinemas on Dezeen

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