You can drive by a house, a farm, a business, a certain panoramic view every day and take it for granted. Close your eyes and you can picture every view you are likely to see on your way to work, to a friend’s house, to the grocery store or the bank.
Even passing by such scenes at night may be familiar, eliciting the same banal reaction in your mind as the all-too-familiar, a comfortable normality.
And then something happens. Perhaps a home receives a new roof, or a new car is in the driveway, a business changes its signage, or a tree has been felled. Suddenly the routine takes on a subtle change, and your mind re-remembers every part of the route, alert that perhaps there have been other changes you might have missed.
The photos accompanying this story are of sights the reader has no doubt seen uncounted times, in all seasons, in all weather, day and night.
But something happens in the overnight hours, that quiet time between, say, 2 a.m. and 5 a.m., when few are stirring, when a person can stand in the middle of Willis Avenue for 10 minutes and not encounter a passing vehicle, when the noise of a car door being shut can clearly be heard from three or four blocks away, when the shadows are not what they were at 10 p.m.
During this time, the familiar, while remaining happily constant, can almost demand a second look, a longer moment of taking it all in. If these photos, being two-dimensional, do not elicit such a response, try sometime for yourself to see the “normal” in changed conditions — at a different time, from a different angle. See the certain in a different light and expect to be surprised.
Robert Redford had a great line in the 1973 classic, “The Sting,” a softly worded admission that inspired the taking, over the course of a few days, the photos shared here.
“It is 2 a.m., and I don’t know anyone.”
Such talent. Awesome and thought provoking photos. Just love them.