Has it been only a week? It feels like ages since we touched through that glass window, since our smiles melted your fellow passengers' hearts, and since the liquids we carried in our eyes went unnoticed by the security personnel at the airport. I can close my eyes and still see you disappear in the surge of people rushing to get comfortable on an overcrowded claustrophobic jet. I go home and I have another bag of memories to unload in Lightroom. And on my desk I put the big flower that you left behind - like all the others before it - on my desk, so that when I do that pose of thoughtful scrutiny of the crossing down the street, I can see the oxymoronic wave of red and green. This flower oscillates between the moods: if it were white, it would've been necrophilic; if it were yellow, it would've been jovial; if it were red, it would've been infernal; and if it were purple, it would've been regal. But it is none of those - it defies all the rules of light and optics mixing red and green, between a tumbling foamy wave and a rustling velvet cape. And although it has been more than a week since it has been plugged from its nurturing surrounding, it stays shiny in its vase like a rocket set for launch - with a clear destination - as if it knows that you and I are once again a thousand kilometers apart.
Project 52
{Project "52"} Week 1
And so the new year begins. And so I start a project. And as much as I thought of this project as starting with a New Year's picture, I didn't get to start it as designed by cliche. If anything, it gets to start in melancholy. My darling and I spent the lovely week of the new year together travelling in the neighbouring countryside, enjoying the winter sun, and watching each other in the eyes. But she had to get back to her side of the border until the next time we meet somewhere else in Europe. And this is how this picture came about - we were at the airport in Graz - she was already through security, and we were separated by a glass wall. Transparent enough that we could see each other and see the warmth in our eyes. And so with this memory, I begin the project!
