Equinox Timescapes

Pearls Centre Sunset, 2013. Singapore Time Dimensions Series. Image Source: fqwimages © artist Fong Qi Wei.

To mark the balance of time occurring with today's Equinox (at 20:44 UTC), see some urban timescape photos today which simultaneously depict day and night, sunrise and sunset, the rush and the quiet. See more photos from Fong Qi Wei's Singaporean timescape series here. See similar American kaleidoscope timescape photos below the jump by Michael Shainblum. These are stills from a short film called Mirror City:

Mirror City is the latest video from photographer and filmmaker Michael Shainblum that takes time-lapse footage of Chicago, San Francisco, San Diego, Las Vegas and Los Angeles and runs it through a constantly shifting kaleidoscopic pattern of mirrors. Shainblum says of the piece took about four months to edit and adds:

These clips were all processed from their original form, into the kaleidoscopic visuals that you see in this video. Many people visit these large cities every day, and all of these places have been shot and filmed, but I wanted to emulate these urban landscapes in a way that nobody has even seen before. I wanted to put man-made geometric shapes, mixed with elements of color and movement to create less of a structured video, and more of a plethora of visual stimulation.

(Hat tip: This is Colossal).

National Day Preview 02, 2013. Singapore Time Dimensions Series. Image Source: fqwimages © artist Fong Qi Wei.

Tiong Bahru HDB Sunset, 2013. Singapore Time Dimensions Series. Image Source: fqwimages © artist Fong Qi Wei.

Mirror City images and video © Michael Shainblum. Source: This is Colossal.

 

Mirror City reminds me of the alien ship in Close Encounters of the Third Kind (see my earlier posts on this film here and here, and a mothership clip on Youtube here).

Still from Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) © Columbia Pictures. Image Source: Creative Cow, interview with Douglas Trumbull.

This would make sense, since Steven Spielberg's  design of the spaceship was inspired partly by an oil refinery he saw at night in India, and partly by an upside down photograph of the nighttime skyline of L.A.