“Window shopping is the favorite pastime of all New Yorkers.” Oxford Dictionary
I spent many an hour window shopping in New York City last year, but I wasn’t exactly looking at the display of goods. Instead, I was searching for reflections: When the transparent glass panel, which allows us to view the display of goods, also mirrors the street that surrounds it, the buildings, the flow of traffic and the passing pedestrians. In the process, I found that I could utilize the glass panel as a lens of sorts, an instrument that blurred, or often erased the lines that separated the storefront from the street, and created an illusion of continuous space.
It was challenging to find the right mix of storefront displays and reflections. When those miraculous compositions come together, the resulting image acquires a life of its own. Furthermore, the interweaving of the self-contained imaginary scene encased behind glass, with a fleeting, though realistic reflection of street life, often evokes a virtual reality — in which size, distance and space, are transformed or tweaked. And though never existing on their own, these images reveal the ever-changing kaleidoscope of New York City street life.