Starry sky over the world's largest cities

Thierry Cohen's photographs are not only rich in visual appeal, but also in technical ingenuity. They show the starry sky that residents of the world's largest cities could see above their heads on a clear night, if this were not prevented by atmospheric and, more importantly, light pollution.

First, Cohen photographs the cityscape, and then goes to the desert, sometimes thousands of kilometers from the city, at exactly the same geographical latitude and photographs the starry sky. He uses in his work a scale based on the speed of rotation of the Earth relative to fixed stars. "The best way to show stars that are no longer visible is to put them back in their place."

(Total 10 photos)

Despite the presence of modern digital technologies, Cohen compares the procedure to methods that have been used by craftsmen for a very long time. Like Gustave Le Gray, who combined seascapes with sky scenes in the 1850s, Cohen combines two landscapes in one picture - a city landscape and a starry night sky, resulting in completely unique photographs. "I use the same methods just with different tools."

Cohen traveled the world and traveled between bustling cities and quiet deserts in search of his vision. To create photographs of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, he went to the Atacama Desert in Chile, New York to the Black Rock Desert in Nevada.

In addition to the technical problems that Cohen faced, there were also human-made obstacles in his path. For example, he was unable to travel alone in Western Sahara, where he went to create a Hong Kong nightlife, due to the conflict between the Polisario Front and Morocco and the countless mines in the Fokian territories.

“My project moved on, it went beyond pollution. It became something political. The sky is the link between all human beings. It's a vision of what the earth should be like - without borders and without war." Cohen's photographs are suspenseful, focusing on the very nature of city life. But his original idea was to create utopian photographs that let the viewer dream. Ultimately, however, Cohen tried to bring to the city the silence that surrounded him in the desert. "I am creating a bridge between two environments."

1. Hong Kong.

2. Sao Paulo.

3. Los Angeles.

4. Paris.

5. Shanghai.

6. New York.

7. Ground Zero, New York.

8. San Francisco.

9. Tokyo.

10. Rio de Janeiro