As a travel-landscape photographer I’d travel many miles for a photograph. These storefront window mannequins were photographed as I walked nearby New York City neighborhoods, most within a six block radius of my home. I photographed from the street as I passed by.
It’s easy to walk by them during the day. At night, like actors in a spotlight, they demanded my attention.
Like the landscapes I m drawn to, they radiate a sense of isolation; their worlds are self contained, each with its own “genius loci” or spirit of place, seemingly outside of time. Their store-front worlds are complete onto themselves.
Their theatrical tableaux pose poignant questions: What makes us human? How do we each create our own identity? How fragile is that identity, our humanity? They suggest a future shared with A.I., in virtual worlds. They speak to our vulnerability, mortality and the constant possibility of dislocation.
Through the close up of my lens, the love they were created with is marvelous to me.
