Photography / Sara Macel’s Nighttime series
Sara Macel’s Nighttime series shot around Brooklyn, New York, reminds me of the movie, 200 Cigarettes. Much like the movie, her photos have an energy of anticipation - like showing up two hours before the party gets going and then walking home at 5am before the sunrise.
What made you decide to start photographing at night?
‘It began in Texas one night while I was driving around my hometown looking for photographs. I put on the song Nighttime by Big Star, which so perfectly captures the idea of being young and trapped in a small town. The project began as a series of landscapes of all the back alleys and parks and driveways I hung out in late at night when I was a teenager. It has since evolved into photographs of my current haunts in Brooklyn as well as photos of the people I see when I’m out at night’.
Do you carry a camera with you at all times or only when you have a purpose?
‘I pick and chose the nights I bring my camera out. Certain nights I go out for the sole purpose of taking pictures. Other times, I find myself walking around without it and then stumble upon some amazing scene and have literally run back home to grab my camera’.
What camera are you working with?
‘This project has all been shot with my Mamiya 7 Rangefinder’.
What are you hoping to find photographing in the wee hours?
‘I’m like a moth drawn to artificial light sources. Neon crosses, movie theater signs, porch lights. The nighttime changes how things look; it adds a sense of mystery to what would otherwise be a benign scene. In terms of the photographs of people at bars, I’m interested in how people act differently in the nighttime. They let their guards down a bit. Of course, the alcohol helps’.
What is your favorite time to shoot?
‘I love that twilight moment when it just gets dark and everything transforms, but it is still early enough to see traces of the day’.
Where has your work been seen?
‘The Center for Photography at Woodstock, Jen Bekman Gallery, Sean Kelly Gallery, Nutopia Magazine, Vision Magazine, and American Photo college edition’.
Tagged: Boroklyn, New York, New York photographers, portraits
RELATED
The haunting imagery of Sarah Wilmer
New York photographer Sarah Wilmer creates dark, nightmare-inducing photographs that have a strange sense of innocence about them. They’re like movie stills, a cross between Lost Highway and Pan’s Labyrinth. We interviewed her recently to get the inside word on the inspirations behind her work. Read more
Shen Wei’s Almost Naked series
In my Personal Vision class at the International Center of Photography, one of our first assignments was to photograph a classmate naked. I was paired up with a guy who wasn’t keen on the assignment (he ended up backing out due to moral issues), and the opportunity to photograph a stranger in the nude is yet to come up again. Yet! With that in mind, we interviewed New York-based, Chinese photographer Shen Wei about his series Almost Naked and how he gets through those awkward moments. Read more
Albert Giordan is a New York-based photographer whose impressive client list references almost every big fashion house today. That means YSL, Alexander McQueen, and Armani, to name but a few. Read more
Also by ALISON WHITTINGTON
Jacqueline Di Milia grew up in America’s first mass produced suburbia, Levittown, New York. In Spring of 2005 she received a BFA in Photography from the School Of Visual Arts. After a few years of photo assisting with wide range of photographers, including Danielle Levitt and Cass Bird, she began shooting editorially in 2006. She currently lives in Brooklyn, New York and obsessively watches French New Wave films. We interviewed her recently. Read more
Ryan Pfluger has an interesting collection of portraits up on his website. His subjects seem coolly detached from the moment, almost like mannequins in a storefront window. We interviewed him recently and asked him how he would describe his style? ‘I think my style is a real integration of photographers that inspired me when I was younger, with the present day aesthetics of the people that surround me. I am still inspired by people like Peter Hujar, Mapplethorpe, and Avedon. I think my style is a combination of clean, well lit intimate portraiture with an edge. However, you don’t need to be over the top to be edgy. I’m all about subtleness’. Read more
Annie Marie Musselman’s wildlife rehabilitation series
Annie Marie Musselman’s series, Finding Trust, explores a basic, yet rarely witnessed, connection that is possible between humans and wildlife. Through photos taken while working in a wildlife rehabilitation sanctuary, Musselman captures tender moments where animal’s lives are in the hands of humans, which for once, is a good thing. Read more
YOU'RE SAYING (1)
HAVE YOUR SAY
I was just recently introduced to the work of artist Misaki Kawai. I must say that my interest in her work has since become something of a creative obsession. Her trippy, child-like figures and animals, painted in the most expressive, perfectly satisfying candy colored hues, are more than enough to send me running for the bag of jelly beans and jolly ranchers hidden in my cupboard. Read more
We love the incessant rumble and roll of London’s The Duke Spirit. So we caught up with the group for a chat. Read more
Katy Smail’s illustrations are kind of like candy floss sticking to wind blown lips — sweet, tempting, yet always just a little bit out of reach. Read more
These small but innovative in-ear headphones from Audio-Technica are part of a new wave of noise canceling buds that claim to block up to 85 to 90 percent of outside sound. Read more
Ten Masked Men are a British parody band that does death metal covers of famous pop songs by Ricky Martin, Christina Aguilera, Madonna, and many others. One of my favorites is their cover of Justin Timberlake’s ‘Cry Me a River’. It’s epic.
Those old issues of Popular Mechanics that forecasted the wondrous technological developments of tomorrow now seem dated and more representative of the times in which they were published than the times they tried to predict. Read more
I love Copenhagen’s Meyers Deli. I don’t know if it’s the giant plates of organic food or the super cool and warm environment. Read more
WE'RE POSTING / SOME OF THE BEST
Here’s another commercial building, and no doubt a nice one too. But just another commercial building. Yet there is something different here and it’s in the materials used. The cladding is a fibre-reinforced polymer, or a FRP, and has a finish similar to that of a car. This technology has not been used on buildings extensively, though it has been used commonly in aerospace industries due to its higher strength to weight ratio than steel and concrete. The building by Foster and Partners — called The Walbrook — is located in London and is due to be completed in 2009.
In the lead-up to one of the most anticipated and controversial Olympic Games in Beijing, Boston.com cobbled together a bunch of surreal photos from the wires that depicts the hyper-sanitized, white-washed, and quasi-futuristic city Beijing has become. Read more
The wealthy of this cramped metropolis we call New York don’t have lavish backyards — they have rooftops. Jwilly’s Rich People Rooftops NYC set on Flickr documents the spaces where the uber-rich of Gotham throw their cookouts, compost their kitchen scraps, or lounge on hot summer days high above our humble heads. Read more
I’m a big fan of the vibrant, textured work of Brighton, England based illustrator Patrick Gildersleeves, who uses ‘pencil, felt tip pen and paint’ and is ‘inspired by the people of the world, patterns, paper, animals and plants’. He is a part of the Joyful Bewilderment group show at the new Rough Trade record store in London, opening October 2, 2008. Read more
Web design can be kinda tricky and expensive. Hell, we should know: it took us ages to get this current design for Lost At E Minor together. And costs? Our mate Uge from Aquabumps reckons he needed a second mortgage to fund his latest redesign indulgence. Read more
Warning at Work is a silkscreen mini-print from Sussex based illustrator Andy Smith which comes in a limited edition of just 50. Dimensions are 20cm x 15cm. We have them available through the Lost At E Minor store. Read more
We have eight Familjen CDs to give away to new Australian based Lost At E Minor subscribers who can tell us what ‘Familjen’ translates to in English. Read more
DISCOVER MORE
SO...
TAGS: 1980s acoustic music animals animation Australian artists Australian bands black and white illustrations black and white photography blogs Brooklyn Brooklyn artists cartoons China collaboration colour colourful illustrations comics electronic music flash games folk music Hip Hop Japan London Los Angeles magazines Melbourne New York New York artists New York bands New York illustrators New York photographers pop music portrait portraits prints rock music San Francisco soul music street art street fashion Sweden Sydney t-shirts Tokyo UK bands
POPULAR:
- Brittanie Pendleton - loved 47 times
- Elaine Biss's feminine charms - loved 24 times
- Prefab House - loved 19 times
- Andreco's brilliant visions - loved 17 times
- Dongyun Lee - loved 13 times
- Fly Apart - loved 13 times
- His name is Moofus, watch him draw - loved 13 times
SEARCH: Can't find what you're looking for? Do a search..
IS IT GOOD FOR YOU TOO?
We hope you're enjoying your time on Lost At E Minor, but it’s not over yet. Got something to share? Tell us about it and we'll look to publish it. If you want to have your work featured on the site, we'd love to hear from you. Or if you’d just like to talk amongst yourselves, that’s cool too. Pssst, we also have an online store stocking some of the goodies we feature on the site.
If you're a media agency and want to use this platform to connect with our readership, then drop us a line and tell us about it. Oh yeah, and we do digital consulting for cool brands that want to reach the sort of demographic that visits this site.













Zac said | 29 July, 2008
Great find Alison - an interesting post on an interesting person.