Movie Stills Aligned Against Their Exact Locations

Photographer and dedicated cinephile Christopher Moloney travels across the world, particularly throughout New York, with a few black and white film stills in tow to capture intriguing juxtapositions of said stills against their real-life locations. This ongoing project is known as FILMography, a portmanteau of the words film and photography. We first came across Moloney's fascinating project a few months ago and he has since expanded his ever-growing collection of films to include a diverse mix of cinema from the holiday hit Elf and Woody Allen's romantic comedy Annie Hall to the comedy Baby Mama and the Audrey Hepburn classic, Breakfast at Tiffany's.

Similar to the method of photographers Khnh Hmoong and Taylor Jones, Moloney uses an on-location layering technique to alert the viewer's senses to the passage of time. Holding a monochromatic printout against the colorful present setting adds to one's heightened perception of time. Perhaps even more interesting than the apparent passage of time and the visible changes or similarities to any given neighborhood is the fact that the pictured stars have walked along the same paths that the ordinary civilians in the background are occupying right now. To think, a street now busy with rushing yellow taxis was once the meeting grounds for The Avengers

Above: Elf, 2003


Breakfast at Tiffany's, 1961


Annie Hall, 1977


You've Got Mail, 1998


The Incredible Hulk, 2008


The Avengers, 2012


The Boondock Saints, 1999


The Brave One, 2007


Doctor Who: The Angels Take Manhattan, 2012


25th Hour, 2002


The Longest Week, 2012


Baby Mama, 2008


Scott Pilgrim vs the World, 2010


Factory Girl, 2006

FILMography on Tumblr
Christopher Moloney on Tumblr

Pinar

Pinar Noorata is the Managing Editor at My Modern Met. She is a writer, editor, and content creator based in Brooklyn, NY. She earned her BA in Film and Media Studies from CUNY Hunter College and is an alumni of the Center for Arts Education’s Career Development Program in NYC. She has worked at major TV, film, and publishing companies as well as other independent media businesses. When she isn’t writing, editing, or creating videos herself, Pinar enjoys watching movies, reading, crafting, drawing, and volunteering at her local animal shelter.
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