Pigeons are beautiful…
…when captured in flight, in slow motion.
With STREET, James Nares stretched three minutes of footage of the streets of New York City to fill over an hour. In that time, the viewer travels through Times Square, Battery Park, and Upper Broadway. It’s not obvious in every instance where the filming is taking place, as the focus is on the people, not the buildings. Nares wanted this to be about the experience of people.
It’s striking how solemn, even sad, most people look at this speed. The children caught on camera seemed the happiest, with one boy appearing to race the camera van, all while clutching his Pokemon book and grinning.
While we associate New York City with constant motion, it is noticeable how many appear nearly frozen, waiting to cross the street. By expanding moments, the viewer can see details we would normally miss.
Thurston Moore, who performed at the Wadsworth Atheneum in January, composed and performed the soundtrack for this film.
STREET is currently playing at the Wadsworth and will remain so through October 28, 2012.
Erik
This piece was shot at 780 frames per second on a high-end digital video camera. At that speed, James Nares was only able to capture 6 seconds at a time. The footage was later slowed to 30fps (normal speed for digital) which creates the illusion of slow motion.
I particularly like this image because the girls see the SUV with the artist and camera go by. They start off with these cute, innocent smiles and little girl waves but, then they morph into these creepy model/thuggish poses.
Kerri Provost
Thanks for the comment — I liked that image too.