an idea sowed in my head in 2015, that i should photograph the city without its inhabitants.
what would that look and feel like, i wondered?
such opportunities were scarce of course.
in the end, Christmas day turned out to be the only time i could pursue my goal.
yet the wait in between required patience, a lot of it.
to my surprise, i managed the wait, but the rain hovering above the city drove me back home two years in a roll.
three years only gave me a few frames of the central library and its surrounds.
pandemic followed soon after, it was a window of a life time, i had the city to myself, photographed as much as i could, often standing in the middle of the road.
that was epic.
but later i saw something missing in the work, nor did i know what.
fast forward to 2022, the idea grew stronger with age, clarify in life, maybe a touch of maturity too. i delved into the history of the city, especially the transformation period that catapulted society to the modern day, with progress imprinted in the new dawn of architecture, modernism.
i found the missing, a theme, a focus, a cohesion of work with meaning.
at the same time, my professional career grew from strength to strength, i was becoming more discerning about my craft, which led me revisiting past buildings, try out different views, at different times.
the paths crossed at an early morning, before dawn, when i set up tripod in front of renold’s building.
no one around, a delivery truck, the rest was eerie quietness, i had the city to myself again.
that idea blossomed.
the fruition is due to hit the book shelves in 2025, published by The Modernist Society.
until then, here is a small selection from nearly 100 buildings i photographed on film at dawn.
