Artist Envisions the Elusive Pleasures of Urban Stargazing

"What would New York or Shanghai look like with a full sky of brilliant stars?" asks Julie Bosman. "Thierry Cohen, a French photographer, thinks he can show us by blending city scenes — shot and altered to eliminate lights and other distractions — and the night skies from less populated locations that fall on the same latitudes. The result is what city dwellers might see in the absence of light pollution."

"As Cohen, whose work will be exhibited at the Danziger Gallery in New York in March, sees it, the loss of the starry skies, accelerated by worldwide population growth in cities, has created an urbanite who 'forgets and no longer understands nature.' He adds, 'To show him stars is to help him dream again.'”