One World Trade Center
Based on a True Story:
Sometimes you don’t know where you are until you stand alone, there:
The Baltic Sea I stood with: I thought about all of the nations that rest ashore: I dreamed about the serenity and volatile currents that travel from shore to shore: I remembered where I had landed before and yesterday:
The Baltic is home for some: I remember when for a mere five minutes I could translate the languages of many tongues, and then none: My captures have danced lightly over Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Russia, Germany and of course Latvia.
I heard a sound as I stood facing the past and with luck a bit of my futures: “Bear” was heard: I kept to myself for a bit: I was a guest among others: There was a stir: There was some running towards the transport: I looked and saw a black shape: In my funny hindsight it reminded me of Frank Gehry: Maybe because so many refer to Frank as a “teddy bear”: I realized a black bear was on the move: I was chased for a mere few seconds along the Latvian coast: He ran: I ran: Here I am.
One Liberty Plaza New York City
That is how it can be when you travel alone: I have landed where the bears are profoundly home to a few billion Chinese, one hundred and fifty million Russians, and possibly fifty million Californians: Symbolism reigns: I want my photographs to remind me of the places and the experiences: a bear chasing me across a beach towards the forest: or maybe the mere fact that I am landing and have landed where the architecture lures my cameras.
I travel from country to country city to city rural outback to places further than my imagination will allow: My experiences appear to have become like dots connected along a languid serpentine line: Espied from above: drawn on earth alone:
Finding new destinations
The architecture that I see enlightens me: lights the way: It is magical to unload my mind on a unique capture: No matter the noise that surrounds me there is simply a peace that I use to make a space seem right:
I have always dreamed: My mind has always needed to be rescued: The intimacy of voices: those who have invited me into their home: There are some who wanted me to hear their voices: to embolden my captures: To rescue me from my dreams.
Wherever I have been my eyes are often interrupted by what the picture should look like: Then as if in a Greek tragedy: The chorus saves me: The chorus has mostly been about the voices who have invited me to listen in their home: Oscar Niemeyer, Philip Johnson, Paulo Mendes and Richard Rogers come to mind. The giants didn’t merely allow me to take some portraits: Their voices invited me into their world if only for a few hours: a few moments:
I share the above because whether it be those particular Pritzker Prize recipients or others: When I am alone in front of any assignment or happenstance I evolve into a into a character with many heads and several sets of eyes: I refer to the many intimate voices for a bit more clarity:
The Baltic: Alone by the sea is where I have sat many times not merely waiting for inspirations but mostly an appreciation for the privilege: It is an absolute privilege to interpret the built environment across countries and beyond. The dreams are relentlessly intertwined into my realities: oh what a pleasurable nightmare of trysts this journey has been.
serendipity