blinking lights and numbers

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Originally uploaded by bigfatbeetle.

this shot was an accident. took a wrong roll of Kodak 100VS to phnom penh and end up having a double exposed shot. what i like is there is no background foreground. they kinda blended well together. the night city shot was taken from my window, and it was a 3-4 secs exposure. the numbers on the wall was taken in phnom penh, in the high sch where many cambodia people were held in captivity and eventually killed by the khmer rogue people. this shot reminded me of the film "lost in translation".
the whole of tokyo was represented as a city of blinking lights 24\7 and usually, the loneliness of the lead actress was contrasted with the background full of blinking lights and moving vehicals when she stared blankly out of her hotel window. even though the entire city was seemed to be full of activities and energy, she was seperated in another world of her own behind the glass of the hotel window. then u wonder which told a more compelling story? her, or the city of blinking lights? then they kinda switched places at times in the film, where sometimes the city presented itself full of people like her, trying to make sense of its loneliness under its flashing billboards and headlamps. and when her suddenly had burst of energy coming from within that had no influence or anything to do with the apparent energy from the city.
like this photo, i was being the quiet observer of 2 different stories. one that witness activities from a few thousand households miles from where i was standing, and one which witnessed something that happened before. one was capturing the present intensity and the on going energy, whereas the other was trying to remember what happened, capturing evidenses of history.

and the blinking lights and numbers met in this exprience.