Silent City (Part I)

In the fall of 2009, I walked the streets of New York City for the first time. I had never left Europe before. The New York I knew was Batman’s Gotham City. Woody Allen’s Manhattan. Don Draper territory. A theatre of dreams and nightmares. When I had just arrived in the city, I didn’t know where to point my camera at first. Inhaling every possible bit of gasoline infested air. Running to keep up with the colors and lights, dancing to the beat of Manhattan. Trying to catch a glimpse of the New York I knew from endless Friends reruns. Needless to say the photographs of that very first trip, are not even close to what the city is really like. They are nothing more than mirrors of what I’d seen in popular culture. It took me several years, and multiple trips to the city, before I stopped trying to keep up with its pounding bass. Guided by mid-20th century icons such as Saul Leiter, Ray Metzker and Ernst Haas, my pace started to slow down. Instead of focusing on the skyscrapers and the man-made canyons of Manhattan, I started to see the beauty in everyday life’s tiny stories. A man, running down Lexington Avenue, all suited up. Children playing, forgetting the crowded train they’re on. Tattooed couples at Coney Island, showing off their bodies on the first warm day of summer. I learned to look at the city from a different perspective. No longer do I feel the need to know every story. All that matters is the moment. That instant in which the beauty of the city manifests itself. A beauty I found in reflections in car windows. In layers upon layers of advertising, torn down, not trying to sell you anything for a change. I noticed street vendors, trying to breathe for a moment, enjoying their short break from work. Girls in tight skirts, soaking up the shy rays of sunlight reflected through a thousand windows. Suits, discussing the latest figures on their walk from one office building to another. This book is for cityrats like myself. People who live in places where ‘more’ and ‘faster’ are standards to live by. These photographs might show you nothing more than small moments. They speak to you in a soft voice. Listen, and you’ll be guided to beauty and order. 
Enjoy the silence.