For some people the creative process can take ages, for others it magically occurs in one night. This happened to German photographer Lucas Zimmermann. While driving one evening he was stopped waiting at the traffic lights, when he suddenly paused and considered the view from an artistic point of view. What followed was a gorgeous series of traffic lights captured during a foggy night in Weimar.
“I was waiting for the lights to turn green, staring at the red light when I saw the visual effect of the fog,” he says. “The red lights that made me stop gave me the opportunity to let the scene sink in and inspire me.”
With only a tripod and his 17-40mm lens with him, Lucas set up, took some test shots and started shooting. The exposures were between eight to 20 seconds. Surprisingly, the only manipulation of the images afterwards involved altering their white balance.
And with these photos, Lucas proves that under the right conditions it is possible to turn mundane objects like traffic lights – which are so common, we only notice them when they are slowing us down – into objects of pure beauty.
“There are many situations in our everyday life when we miss a beautiful moment, or in this case a picture, simply because we don’t stop and look around. I once read that you can’t create a perfect moment but that you will witness them. We only have to stop from time to time and let it happen.”
