b&w

{Project "52"} Week 2

Has it been only a week? It feels like ages since we touched through that glass window, since our smiles melted your fellow passengers' hearts, and since the liquids we carried in our eyes went unnoticed by the security personnel at the airport. I can close my eyes and still see you disappear in the surge of people rushing to get comfortable on an overcrowded claustrophobic jet. I go home and I have another bag of memories to unload in Lightroom. And on my desk I put the big flower that you left behind - like all the others before it - on my desk, so that when I do that pose of thoughtful scrutiny of the crossing down the street, I can see the oxymoronic wave of red and green. This flower oscillates between the moods: if it were white, it would've been necrophilic; if it were yellow, it would've been jovial; if it were red, it would've been infernal; and if it were purple, it would've been regal. But it is none of those - it defies all the rules of light and optics mixing red and green, between a tumbling foamy wave and a rustling velvet cape. And although it has been more than a week since it has been plugged from its nurturing surrounding, it stays shiny in its vase like a rocket set for launch - with a clear destination - as if it knows that you and I are once again a thousand kilometers apart.

Everyday Magic

I always try to look for the positive things on the street with my street photography and some time ago I asked my twitter and facebook followers for topics for a shooting challenge – Elena had one of the most inspirational topics: “Everyday Magic”. It took me more than a month to collect something for her. These six pictures to me capture those slivers of the daily routine of the people involved. The camera man becomes somewhat of a voyeur – staying away, and yet penetrating a most intimate moment. Photography for me is not merely a chance to immortalize a moment – it is the experience of that moment – none of these events would have been memorable to me if I had not taken a picture of them, if I had not seen them in a still frame through a small window, if I had not studied them afterwards, if I had simply continued my walk through the city, if all elements did not fall into place on their own: the woman with her hand on her forehead when she sees the gay couple, the two men staring at the kissing couple on the stairs, the ignorant isolated bliss of the kissing couple, the two dogs politely sniffing each other in the middle of the big square, the boy that wanted to take a picture of the couple but got distracted by the street photographer taking picture of him…