Night in the city

Ahh, the sultry south. Charleston. Where even in late October, hours after the sun has sunk below the horizon, your skin still feels damp with humidity so thick you can taste it. As you wander the streets with the last remnants of pink streaking the sky, you can feel the slow pulse of the city. The gentle breeze stirs, lifting the damp tendrils of hair from your neck and carrying with it the varied scents of seductive night blossoms, gourmet food and, yes, the tang of the horses that clip clop down the cobblestone streets carrying tourists to and fro. The windows of homes, two centuries older than you, reveal the way with the glow of electric lights, so different than the candles that once would have beckoned from the muted glass panes. The church bells toll the hour as the night grows ever more quiet. The steeples of these testaments to faith tower above, discreet beacons in the dark velvet sky. The graveyards, locked tight, glow eerily with the light of streetlamps casting shadows that might be more than they appear. And the haunting strains of what seems to be a violin ebb and flow, and are carried like butterflies through the evening air, blown away by the distant sound of a foghorn, calling it’s way into port. The moon makes an appearance now and the star studded sky is revealed, all the clouds blown away. And if you stand for just a moment and look up, you can believe you’re gazing into the same heavens as those who did the same before you, more than 200 years ago. Here, now, the past and the present blur and, for just this one moment, time will stand still.


As the sun goes down








absolutely no photoshop was used in any of these images. all it is the right exposure, the right equipment and the right kind of night sky.