Portrait and Documentary Photographer Bart Koetsier is the Edge of Humanity Magazine contributor of this photo essay. From the project ‘Taillights Fade’. To see Bart’s body of work, click on any image.

Just like a moth is attracted to a candle, Bart Koetsier (1975) is attracted to neon and street lights. It enables him to record what is shocking and yet so captivating about urban life in Europe after sunset. In the past ten years, the artificial light and the night have become Koetsier’s habitat. When most of us go to sleep, Koetsier goes out. The dim light gives his images of the night a frayed, poetic charm. This, in combination with the long exposure times, often results in poignant images, untouched by digital processes.

Koetsier portrays the life of ordinary people in European cities such as Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris, Marseille and Warsaw with an unremitting drive and a sense of urgency. In cities, people get the most chances, but at the same time people’s anonymity increases their chance of failing unnoticed. In cities, success and failure are first visible. Despite the sharper contrast between the haves and the have-nots that the night brings to the fore, Koetsier does not present us a European vale of tears. He shows the power of the dark city in which true encounters are possible as the masks of the day have disappeared.