shades of life

I remember standing there by the window early in the morning and just looking down. Everything seemed static, like wen you are in an insulated room; not any sound from outside, just the sounds coming from your inside
—your breathing, your pulse, and you are looking at an empty stage. The distance to the ground made the few people crossing the plaza, tiny little unknown shapes going somewhere. I felt the emptiness of a paused time. I knew that in a moment I’d go down to the streets and work with my camera and even when the silence will be gone and replaced with the noise of a busy city I'll be there behind and hidden by the camera lens not taken part of that life, just watching. I couldn’t move from the window, I couldn’t leave either the feeling of emptiness or not-belonging. I was there but it was just my body that had trapped me and didn’t let me free. Those shades and brittle structures down there, attracted me, invited me to be part of the nothingness...after some years that landscape disappeared, but not with me...

(photo: the plaza between the twin towers,
from my hotel room, new york, 1998)