Alone Together: Photos That Show the Loneliness of Cities During Blue Hour

Alone Together is a photo project by Aristotle Roufanis that looks at the “loneliness of cities during the blue hour.”

Roufanis is based in London, and this ongoing photographic project shows small, individual apartment lights as the only thing visible in a large metropolitan city at dusk.

It’s easy to feel lonely in a big city. Life moves so fast and people rarely talk to strangers, so the project highlights this phenomenon of “social alienation” and feeling that a lot of city-goers may well be able to relate to.

“The bigger the city, the lonelier we feel,” says Roufanis. “In a big city we are very efficient in covering all our consumerist needs, but we forget our need for companionship.”

For Roufanis, each light shining in the city at night symbolizes a person “stranded in the dark void of a detached world.”

Zooming in allows Roufanis to focus on the few lights of more private, residential areas, compared to the larger more bustling commercial districts in a city.

To achieve the high detail needed to allow you to “zoom in” on the individual rooms, Roufanis used super high-resolution photography techniques. Meticulously editing the photos into the final composites took up to one month for each piece.

He sits atop a hill or high-rise building, waiting for the lights to appear and the light to be low enough to create the atmosphere he’s looking for in his photos.

Roufanis’ work will be exhibited as huge 5-meter wide productions at ZONAMACO FOTO in Mexico City from September 20-24, 2017. You can also find more of his work on his website, Instagram, and Facebook.