The Distance of Light

We are drawn to the glow. It is a primitive instinct, perhaps, to look toward the fire when the night turns cold and the horizon dissolves into nothingness. From a distance, a city is not a place of people or noise. It is merely a collection of embers, a map of human persistence against the dark. We stand above it, detached, watching the pulse of a million lives we will never touch. There is a strange comfort in this anonymity. To be high enough to see the pattern, but far enough away to remain untouched by the friction of the streets. We look for order in the scattering of sparks, hoping that if we stare long enough, the chaos will reveal a shape. But the light only shows us what is already there, and the dark remains, patient and vast, waiting for the current to fail. Does the light belong to the city, or does the city belong to the dark?

Stefan Thallner has captured this distance in his image titled Sparkling Paris. It is a quiet observation of a place that never truly sleeps. Does the stillness of the view change how you hear the city?