Envisioning A World Without People

by Claire O'Neill

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  Times Square, New York City, 2010

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  Lucie & Simon/iDm Isabelle Decamps Management
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  Xizhimen Ring Road, China, 2010

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  Lucie & Simon
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  Place de la Concorde, Paris, 2008

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  Place de l'Opera, Paris, 2009

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  Madison Square, New York City, 2009

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  The Louvre, Paris, 2010

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  Baie de Saint-Brieuc, France, 2011

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  Columbus Circle, New York City, 2009
  

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  Paris church, 2009

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  Tiananmen Square, China, 2010

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  Lucie & Simon

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Times Square is a zoo and it always will be, at all hours of the day — unless, maybe, it's the end times. That's an eerie thing to imagine, but it's also exactly what the photographer duo Lucie & Simon want you to imagine. They are trying to create what they describe as "impossible places" in their series Silent World: cities stripped of every car, every person — except for maybe a single wanderer.
Surprisingly, it's not all Photoshop. The self-taught, Paris-based artists emailed me a statement explaining that each image starts with an hours-long exposure: "This way all elements in movement (cars, persons, etc.) disappear."
Then they go to work in Photoshop, combining that long-exposure image with several other photos to create the ultimate unsettling image of an empty Paris, for example. The images were made in the United States, China, France and Italy between 2009-2012. You can see more on their website.