Another “from a hotel room” shot here, this time through a cleaner window.
I found myself kind of visually fascinated by this Portland rooftop. Part of it was that very late at night, the orange lights had a kind of “Nighthawks” look, about half-lurid, half-warm invitation. The little box in the middle is where cars parking on the rooftop or departing would go, and somehow it visually looked to me like a magic box since I couldn’t see the ramp down within it, a sort of car-park TARDIS that was spitting out vehicles and devouring them.
There’s also the fascination that comes from waking up at 3am, looking out, and seeing that there are still two cars there. (The roof was nearly full during the day.) You can’t help but imagine: who is that? Do they live in the building? (As far as I could tell, the upper floors of this building were completely vacant—not parking, not anything from what I could see.)
This part of the city was also weird at night. There was a huge grinding noise about three or four times each night between midnight and 6am, like a squeaky door four stories high being opened theatrically. Also very loud shouts a few times, I think from the folks living on the streets, but more ghostly and forlorn in some fashion.
Everybody talks about the hustle and excitement of cities as one of their attractions, but there’s something about the mysteries of night where tens of thousands of people live in proximity that grabs my imagination. (When I am up above it all in a living space: walking mostly deserted streets at 3am is a different kettle of fish.) Suburban and rural night noises are usually easy to decipher: the noise of the major roads, the unearthly cry of foxes, the owl hoots. The countryside at night is visually unsettling: anything could be in dark woods, at the horizon line where the stars vanish and distant plains devour sight. Cities at night, seen from above, are ablaze with light, easily surveilled both within and without. The mystery is in the multitude of things they show and sound out.