01/04/2023
New york, USA
A city where life happens at a relentless pace, where millions of stories unfold simultaneously across its boroughs
New York is a city of layers. It’s built on the stories of countless individuals, each one adding their own chapter to the sprawling narrative. Walking through its streets, I was struck by the way the city seems to reflect these layers—both literally and metaphorically. In the glass facades of towering skyscrapers, you can see the past blending with the present, the old tenement buildings merging with the new. In the rain-soaked streets of the Village, reflections of passersby are distorted by puddles, creating a sense of disconnection from the fast-paced reality around them. Through the Lens is about capturing these moments of reflection, both physical and emotional, as they occur within the urban landscape
Film was essential to the project, allowing me to slow down and truly engage with these moments of reflection. Unlike digital photography, where you can take an infinite number of shots and review them instantly, film forces you to be intentional, to trust your instincts, and to embrace the imperfections.
he texture and grain of film gave each image a timeless quality, blurring the line between past and present—a theme that echoed through the streets of New York. The city’s reflective surfaces, from its sleek glass towers to its rain-soaked pavements, became a canvas for the stories I sought to tell.
What drew me to Through the Lens was the idea that New York is a city that’s always looking back at itself. Whether it’s the reflections of people hurrying through Times Square mirrored in shop windows, or the way the sunset glows off the water of the Hudson River, the city is constantly in conversation with itself, always shifting between moments of chaos and calm. In those reflections, I saw stories—fragments of lives briefly captured and then lost as the city moved on. The project became a way to freeze those fleeting moments, to hold on to the reflections that so often go unnoticed.
The reflections in the glass and steel facades of buildings seemed to blur the lines between the individual and the city itself. In these moments, it felt as though the city was not just a backdrop, but an active participant in the lives unfolding on its streets.
Reflections in subway windows or puddles on the pavement turned everyday scenes into layered compositions, where the boundary between reality and reflection became almost indistinguishable. These moments, where the city’s streets seemed to echo the lives of its people, became central to the project.
The weather, too, played a key role in shaping the narrative of Through the Lens. New York’s ever-changing weather conditions offered countless opportunities to explore the theme of reflection. Rain became a transformative element, turning ordinary sidewalks into mirrors, distorting the neon lights of Times Square and the quiet brownstones of Harlem alike. Fog rolled in over the bridges, creating a dreamlike quality, where the reflections of people and buildings seemed to fade into the mist. Each change in weather added new layers to the city’s reflections, turning familiar scenes into something new and unexpected.
