View from My Studio Window, 1999 to the present.
My series, View from My Studio Window, was developed unintentionally and represents a visual diary of time, through a small window, in Brooklyn. After I moved to East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in 1999, I started to photograph the skyline of Lower Manhattan from a window in my studio, which was at that time, dominated by the presence of the Twins Towers of the World Trade Center. The magnificence of the two towers mesmerized me. The design of the buildings with their straight parallel vertical lines against the horizontal skyline captured my attention and compelled me to document their presence.
On the morning of September 11, after the planes collided with the towers, I photographed the skyline with my 35mm film camera before they collapsed. During that day and the next morning, I kept coming back to the window and photographing the vanished view. I did not investigate that roll of 35mm film for ten years. The period of time between after the collapse of the twin towers and the construction of the new building did not peak my interest as much, except for a few occasional images.
The construction of the new tower in 2012 renewed my attention of the view of the Lower Manhattan skyline. The new tower, with its twisted design resembling the old tower, fulfilled the emptiness in the skyline left by the old one. Photography during this period had rapidly transformed itself from film to digital, and new social media platforms were created that allowed me to show these images in a more immediate and informal setting.
The process of gentrification that affected not only New York City but especially the neighborhood of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, is portrayed as are different weather conditions, seasonal changes, and historical events. This series is a pictorial narrative of the passing of time (1999- present) through a small window in Brooklyn overlooking the skyline of downtown Manhattan.
Part 1 - 1999 to mid-2019
Part 2 - mid 2019 to 2023
Part 3 - 2024 to the present