Night Vision: Photography After Dark

Night Vision: Photography After Dark at the Met. "...In the 1930s, inspired by the pioneering work of Brassaï in Paris and Bill Brandt in London, photographers began to turn their attention to the social life of the city at night, from the convivial hubbub of Little Italy's Feast of San Gennaro to the top-hatted elegance of opening night at the opera. Others were drawn to the gritty underworld of nocturnal outlaws or to lone figures on the margins, picturing the night as a shadowy realm of pleasure, danger, and transgression. More recently, artists have delved even deeper, adapting techniques of police and military surveillance (hidden cameras, searchlights, infrared film) to pry into hidden corners of the night, driven by an ageless desire to make darkness visible."