Neon Nights: Photographer Captures the Energy of Cities in Luminous Photographs

Gerry Cranham's neon nights throb with life

Life’s energy can be seen in light. It penetrates the nothingness and pulls us in. We can fill the space been light and dark with pulsating neon, gorgeous bright lights that illuminate the roadside and city. British photographer Gerry Cranham (born 1928), who took us into the heart to the crowd with his sensational sports photography, now shows us the night shaped by the throb of electric light.

In night scenes of New York City, London and Las Vegas from the 1960s, Gerry captures the thrill of seeing halos of bright hues appended against the black night sky as mankind’s wattage vies to usurp the moon and the give substance to life’s fragility. Rather than seeing the neon lights as part of messages to pull us in off the street and into restaurants and clubs, Cranham plays with them, creating transformative clusters of abstract images, so that words and signs show us how light sculpts, altering what we see and how we see it.

These images and more available as prints exclusively at the Flashbak shop.

 

November 1969 New York City abstract sky line. (photo by Gerry Cranham)

November 1969 New York City abstract sky line. (photo by Gerry Cranham)

Gerry Cranham’s photographs are available as archival prints in the Flashbak Shop.

 

June 1971 Chelsea Girl shop in London. (photo by Gerry Cranham)

June 1971 Chelsea Girl shop in London. (photo by Gerry Cranham)

December 1965 The Strip, Las Vegas. (photo by Gerry Cranham)

December 1965 The Strip, Las Vegas. (photo by Gerry Cranham)

November 1966 Regent Street London Gerry Cranham

November 1966 Regent Street London Gerry Cranham

December 1965 The Strip, Las Vegas. (photo by Gerry Cranham)b

December 1965 The Strip, Las Vegas. (photo by Gerry Cranham)

November 1967 Buitoni Foods, Broadway, NYC New York Gerry Cranham

November 1967 Buitoni Foods, Broadway, NYC New York Gerry Cranham

November 1967 Broadway, NYC New York. (photo by Gerry Cranham) ii

November 1967 Broadway, NYC New York. (photo by Gerry Cranham)

November 1967 Jack Dempseys Bar, Broadway, NYC New York Gerry Cranham

November 1967 Jack Dempseys Bar, Broadway, NYC New York Gerry Cranham

October 1967 Broadway, NYC New York. (photo by Gerry Cranham)

October 1967 Broadway, NYC New York. (photo by Gerry Cranham)

Gerry Cranham’s photographs are available as archival prints in the Flashbak Shop.

 

November 1966 Trafalgar Square London. (photo by Gerry Cranham)

November 1966 Trafalgar Square London. (photo by Gerry Cranham)

November 1967 Broadway, NYC New York photo by Gerry Cranham

November 1967 Broadway, NYC New York photo by Gerry Cranham

December 1976 The Strip, Las Vegas. (photo by Gerry Cranham)

December 1976 The Strip, Las Vegas. (photo by Gerry Cranham)

 

December 1968 NYC skyline at sunset, showing Empire State Building,New York Gerry Cranham.

December 1968 NYC skyline at sunset, showing Empire State Building,New York Gerry Cranham.

You can buy prints of Gerry Cranham’s spellbinding photographs in the Flashbak shop.

These images are exclusive to Flashbak. If you’d like to feature them, please get in touch.

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