Photographing Berlin by Night
Photographing Berlin by night is tricky; the city is dark and fast. Interesting events occur constantly, but to be present with the correct apparatus and enough illumination to register them... that happens once in a blue moon. It's therefore sometimes necessary to assist photographic truth.
'Day-for-Night' is well known in the Cinema as a technique for avoiding the problems of night-time shooting. The camera does not lie - the text (or context) swears that day is night, and we willingly suspend our scepticism, along with the screenplay, in the emulsion of appearance. There is no trickery here though.
Leaving the Zoo-Palast cinema on Budapester Straße, walking and looking towards the giant revolving Mercedes 'star' that dominates Berlin from high on the 2O-story Europa-Center, one's view is briefly occluded by the comparatively small Aeroflot sign of the Soviet Airlines office. For an instant they merge; ...a collision of worlds? ...a conjunction of signs? ...significant at all?
The answer to all of these questions is in the negative. This study is scientific not mythic, astronomical not astrological. This constellation is a purely visual phenomenon, framed and presented from a specific point-of-view. Ursa Major, 'The Great Bear', seen from say the planet Pluto, would appear different - less 'great' perhaps or less 'bear'-like.
