New York: a city you’ve already lived before arriving

They say New York has been photographed so many times, and its streets have been the setting for so many films, that when you finally arrive, it feels like you’ve already been there. And it’s true. There’s a familiarity to its corners—as if you’re walking through someone else’s memory.

Still, for us Europeans, it’s a good idea to study the numbered street system before visiting. It’s logical, yes, but completely foreign to our way of navigating cities. I came to New York to study English and ended up living in an apartment on 77th Street, just off Fifth Avenue, near the Guggenheim and the Metropolitan. I shared the place with a publicist who worked at an agency in 100 Fifth Avenue.

I carried a small Sony compact camera everywhere I went. I photographed what I saw, more as a way of remembering than anything else. Photography became my anchor, my tool to hold onto the experience. These images aren’t postcards or grand compositions—they’re fragments of everyday life, a quiet attempt to document a city that is never entirely new, yet never stops astonishing.

New York, August 2008"