A spectacular portrait in darkness and light: Eric Hines's Cityscape Chicago

thanks to Chicago Magazine's Dennis Rodkin for tweeting about this video 

Do NOT watch this video here.  Click on it to go to Vimeo, and watch high-res, full screen.  Says the creator, Eric Hines . . .

Cityscape Chicago is a personal timelapse piece consisting of over 30,000 still photographs shot on the Canon 5D Mark III incrementally between July and October 2012 around downtown Chicago, Illinois.

The inspiration of this piece was my fascination with the city of Chicago, particularly at night. For me, there has always been a mysterious sort of feeling to Chicago at night, so I decided to explore and capture it.

Hines's video is so amazing a portrait of the form and energy of a great city that I have to admit that, for me, the soundtrack - Transcendence by 'The American Dollar - is a bit too generic to do it justice.  I substituted the Act I prelude to Die Walküre, which is a better scoring for the drama, triumph and heartbreak, charity and cruelty that are the dynamic of the proud, vainglorious, amoral, spiritual, hopeless, hopeful hive of humanity creating and animating these stunning cityscapes. 

click image for larger view (highly recommended)

The closing shot, the body of Chicago with the circle interchange as the beating heart pumping life through its circulatory system, is as seminal an image of our time as you're likely to find.  I need to get started on that screenplay.

Eric Hines is 22 years old.

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