The adress finder
- 📍 Location: La Villette, Paris, France
- 📅 Date: 2022
A woman crossing the cobbles at La Villette, phone in hand, eyes down, walking along the pale strip of paving that cuts across the square in front of the striped building. The sun is behind the roofline and flares over the top of the frame.
The pale strip is what makes the composition: it runs from the bottom left corner to the middle distance and the figure is placed on it, so the eye follows the path and finds her rather than starting with her. She is small and the square is large, which is the accurate proportion of the place.
This is the same corner as the frame of the woman searching her bag, and the two belong together: one has stopped, one is still moving, both are looking for something. Photographed from the same position, an hour apart.
I exposed for the ground rather than the sky, letting the highlights go, because the cobbles are the texture that holds the picture together and a correctly exposed sky would have flattened them.
I wanted a photograph of the most ordinary gesture of our decade, performed in a very large public space by somebody who has no idea where she is.
Limited-edition fine-art print from the Skywaven Studios collection, available in several sizes, papers and framing options.
