Story Noº 12 / 151: Until the Lights Come On

Noº 12/151: Until the Lights Come On
Collection: Weekend in the City

Almost everyone has tried to photograph a sunset.
Almost everyone has been disappointed afterwards.

Every photographer knows this.

You weren’t trying to remember the sky.

You were trying to remember what it felt like to stand beneath it that day.

This photo went through several concept iterations before landing on something I felt was simpler and stronger.

Until the Lights Come On began with exactly that problem.

Not how to photograph an evening in New York, but how to photograph the sensation of belonging to neither day nor night.

For years, I walked my Shiba Inu, Coda, at exactly that time of day.

I listened to the same song almost every evening: Every Teardrop Is a Waterfall by Coldplay.

Eventually I started singing it to myself.
Coda never complained.
It was such a nice feeling.

A literal photograph couldn’t do the job, so I stopped being literal.

I made the pigeons glow.
I lifted a man above the skyline.

None of those things happened, of course.

They were simply the most honest way I could think of to tell the truth.

Years later, while sketching ideas for this photograph from the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, I watched the first lights flicker on across the East River and realized I wasn’t trying to photograph the sunset.

I was trying to photograph what it felt like to walk beneath it.

It just happened to look like a man floating above New York.

He protects himself without hiding.

This photo is dedicated to you, Coda. Rest in peace.

If this was worth your time, pass it on.

This work will become a book.
Photographs and field notes by James Miille
Words by Jona Montoya