Light at night is not natural. Photographing incandescent, fluorescent, mercury vapor, neon and other kinds of lamps at night, leave a multitude of different colors on film. The subject of today’s photo is illuminated by artificial lights of the night. The night lighting reflected off the subject result in a flat, dull uniformly lit pattern. The difference between this and others photographs in this series is its overall muted and gray look (see Parking Lot Impasto, Parking Lot Square, Derelict Parking Lot).
Parking Lot Lines at Night
There is something about this light that seems to reveal another, sinister, or otherworldly, aspect to this scene. As if revealing a personality layer not previously expected.
I wonder if your reaction to this look is related to the Noir movie genre, movies of the 40s and early 50s that made use of dramatic, dark lighting (through the necessity of low budgets). This of course would depend on whether you know this genre of movie. Personally, Noir is one of my favorite type of movie to watch.
Thanks, Claudia!
I had the Noir thought when I first saw it, because I also like that type of movie. Or even non-noir movies of that time, because many of them had night scenes, drama, etc. that looked like this (I think of the movie Sudden Fear with Joan Crawford, at the end). This image of yours is very noir, I totally think so.