While photo shoots can be meticulously staged, sometimes the best shots come with an element of surprise – particularly in the chaotic context of cities like New York an London.

Architect by training and photographer by professions, Daniella Zalcman took a series of photographs before leaving the largest city in the United States for the largest city in the United Kingdom, overlaying them secondary exposures in the latter city.

The results are predictably unpredictable – a mix of juxtapositions ranging from smooth transitional gradients to sharp spatial contrasts, capturing street art and sidewalk scenes as well as broader city-scapes and edge conditions.

In the end, many of the most jarring compositions defy the brain’s desire to organize a coherent narrative, like a tip-of-your-tongue memory or a slowly-fading dream, an effect reinforced by the gritty texture and grainy quality of the images themselves.

More on the artist, who has also since launched a Kickstarter project for this set: “Daniella Zalcman is based in NYC where she works as a freelance photographer for the Wall Street Journal. Born in Washington, DC, she graduated from Columbia with a degree in architecture in 2009. Other clients include The New York Times, the New York Daily News, Vanity Fair, Esquire, Sports Illustrated, Saatchi & Saatchi, National Geographic, Wired, and The Nation.”