Dark City
William Eckersley
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Initially inspired by the stillness of London at night, photographer William Eckersley began experimenting in late 2007 and found a once flat world illuminated by dull, grey daylight transformed under the cloak of darkness.
Garish spotlighting from multiple angles now cast deep shadows and silhouettes, with hues of pink, cyan and orange. The stage was devoid of its human players and seemed to be showcasing the scenery’s forgotten beauty, revealing a stark and otherworldly aesthetic in a city drained of its occupants. The built environment, deliberately contrived to service the needs and desires of humanity, makes sense in the context of teeming human life. Without this however, its inherent functionality no longer visible, our urban spaces appeared to stand forlorn, waiting to be judged on their genius or folly, beauty or ugliness.
After four years of stunning large format photography, and with a foreword by renowned author and critic Sukhdev Sandhu, Dark City promises a compelling view of unseen London.
Aesthetica – “Eckersley, as this book reaffirms, is a photographer with a different perspective… creates a vision of a city that is scarcely even recognisable as the London we identify with.”
Creative Review – “What’s really appealing about the results is the sheer amount of detail Eckersley has eked out of his subject. There is in fact a whole other world to look at.”
Nowness – “The unexpected structures and surreal vistas he uncovers offer an eerie and otherworldly vision of the iconic city.”
f22 – “Dark City is a London that will be totally unfamiliar to the majority of its residents, but the individual images are studies in the ethereal; an other-world of differing time values and perspectives.”
Monocle – “Eckersley shows the empty humanity of England’s vast metropolis at its most vivid and alluring… This gracious dereliction of the night that descends on the city is wonderfully manifested in this collection.”
Published November 2011
Photographs by William Eckersley
Foreword by Sukhdev Sandhu
208 pages
160 colour & 56 b/w photographs
255 x 315 mm
Hardback with sewn binding
Full colour offset printing
Edition of 1000
ISBN 978-0-9553143-2-2
Available in the following bookshops: Artwords, Brick Lane Books, Daunt, Donlon, Foyles, Magma, Photographer’s Gallery, RIBA, Serpentine Bookshop, Tate Modern, Whitechapel Gallery and via Paypal below