Modern Times: One City — Two Worlds

One thing that always amazes me when I am walking the streets of Tel-Aviv is the fact that I am constantly moving between two different worlds. One is a shiny glass-surrounded world, populating the most successful business people and companies. A world of straight lines reaching to the sky, but at the same time hiding them with their own reflection. A world located only minutes away from the world of the poor and oppressed — the world of houses that are barely standing used as shelter for people who are barely living.

Modern Times is a journey between these two worlds.

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I would like to start this journey with one of my favorite photos in the series. When I first came across this building it looked like just another office building — square and boring. It didn’t seem unique in any way… except for the white patterns on its outer walls. I didn’t notice them at first, but when I did, they seemed like Morse code. Suddenly, this simple building transformed into a three-dimensional enigma. The black walls, the shades on almost all the windows, and the Morse code screaming “SOS” from every wall and window, gave the building a prison-like look — as if someone is captured inside, waiting to be saved.

Modern Times | SOS

Across town,  I found a different kind of prison: an old building with two windows so small that light can barely go in. This oddly composed wall caught my eyes, and for a moment is looked like a sad malformed face.

Modern Times | Untitled

I love this clash in scenery which is only couple of blocks apart. Looking at the next two photos side by side, demonstrates it very well. The clean, symmetrical, geometrically perfect, endless structure versus the old, deteriorating, almost chaotic structure. But are they really that different? Would you want to spend your life in either one of them? Does any of them have a way out?

Modern Times | Cube

Modern Times | Untitled

I don’t know if this makes any sense, but I equally love structured patterns and chaos. I particularly love a frame that seems to be nothing but random disorder at first,  and suddenly looks like a perfectly-orchestrated composition. I love this next photo just for that. I cannot explain why, but everything just seems to fit in place. Even the small basket on top of the laundry machine.

Modern Times | Untitled

In Let There Be Light I focused on a subject in a different scale: a projector illuminating a huge ad placed on the front of a simple building — an ad that effectively blocks all natural light and air from entering the building. I tried making the title and object clash with the blackness and emptiness in this photo. Below it there’s another close up: this time of two vents. Can you guess what the story behind it is?

Modern Times | Let There Be Light

Modern Times | Untitled

Back to “the good side” of the city. This “two-dimensional” office building (with flat two-dimensional people inside?) is a good reason to talk a little about post-processing. While many of my photos might look unnatural and heavily processed, I almost never alter the subjects I shoot or add new elements to the scene digitally. Flatland is no exception. The two-dimensional illusion was created by the architecture of the building and my selection of position when I captured it. There is no digital trick here. I take the time to mention this despite my view that this facts are not really important. The only thing that matters is how does the photo you are watching makes you feel. But that’s for another article…

Modern Times | Flatland

I would like to conclude this short overview of the Modern Times series with a set of photos from one of my favorite locations (at least in the neat and clean end of the urban spectrum). All the photos below were taken in the same location. Each of them tries to bring something different from the symmetric monotonic buildings decorating the skyline of  Tel-Aviv.

The last photo in this set was taken from inside the building. For me, this photo symbolizes modern decay. It’s about how our modern life is collapsing into itself — or, it’s simply about how things that look so strong and solid from the outside, can so easily break from within.

Modern Times | Vertigo

Moder Times | The Race

Modern Times | Trapped

Modern Times | Phantom Tower

Modern Times | Untitled

If you liked this small selection of photos, I invite you to my gallery where you can find the entire Modern Times series.

– Lidor Wyssocky