Balconies have become an obsession for me here. Whether they are bare, marked only by a mother looking over the city with her children or an old man smoking a cigarette, or decorated by the clean laundry of an entire family, baby-size shirts to dress pants and full-length jellabiyas...I am captivated. There is something fascinating to me about the idea of a space that is both so public and so private, all at once.
Sometimes there is striking contrast: aging building, bright laundry, babies' clothing, evidence of new life. Other times there is just this sense of complicity between the balcony dwellers, as if when you step out onto the floor of your balcony, you are stepping onto the floor of the city, the shared ground of 4 million other lives.
A less dreamy, romantic reason would be that it is easier to take pictures from a balcony without calling attention to myself...always a welcome advantage. :)
(note: most of these pictures are from my old neighborhood in mouharrem bek, alexandria, but the last two shots I took from my friend max's apartment in cairo)
2 comments:
you are so artistically amazing
i love and miss you
Dotts~
Why yes they give me vertigo they are beutiful and remind me of the balconiesin Slovakia. I have a great picture on my cousin's balcony.
Have you seen any rioting over food rationing?
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