The Opposite House by Batsceba Hardy

Anyone like me who spends most of their day looking at the sky, cannot fail to run into the windows.

I love windows, which reflect the sunlight, which lights up at night, because behind each one there is a story, a heart that pulsates. For a time I lived in front of my Doppelgänger.

I called it that because, like me, she was always on the computer and the light in her window was always on. Whatever time of night I looked at her, she was always there ...

But you know, Batsceba Hardy loves to contemplate herself in the windows of houses.

The apartment across the street

Rarely have I spent meaningful amounts of time in towns or cities. I’m slightly envious of those whose lives encompass the daily ritual that goes with the territory.

I appreciate that for some, urban existence is drab and grey; something in which to hide and fade away. For others, however, City Life is a way to absorb colour.

Oh to live in an apartment building...full of sounds, people and stories. Imagine that from your apartment you can see another; just across the street.

Many the story that unfolds within your view; almost serialised by it’s daily repetition.

There’s no conversation with those distant neighbours… but there’s almost a dialogue .

There’s no knowing what music plays in the background of that other apartment … but a list of possible songs grows.

There can be no knowledge of what smells drift through from the kitchen … but a menu forms in the imagination.

In the mind of the right viewer, this is not invasive. Nor is it voyeuristic.

Those are cold, hard terms to describe another kind of person.

No...in the mind of this particular viewer it’s just a knowing:

Life goes on,

Observed,

In a warm and respectful manner.

Truth be told, if the tables were turned, the shoe on the other foot...or more explicitly, the camera in the other’s hand…

I believe this photographer would be quite ok with that.