An experimental timelapse video shot by Nicholas Buer reveals what South East London’s night sky would look like if a blackout wiped the metropolis of its light.
“I started shooting this project back in August 2013 and have been slowly gathering footage when conditions were right,” said Buer. “Although each shot in this film is a composite, all footage is real."
Buer flipped the switch on London's lights and replaced them with starlight by capturing its architecture during the day, editing it to look the images were taken at night, and then filming the star-studded skies at dark locations with less light pollution. The footage is as astronomically correct for that latitude of London as possible.
“I first got the idea for the film when I read an article about a blackout in LA in 1994 where people called 911 reporting these strange clouds floating in the sky, those clouds where in fact the Milky Way,” said Buer. “It made me think about how the lights from cities have made many of us lose our connection to the night sky.”
