I always think that one of the most important thing in photography, especially street photography, is to tell the times we are living for the future, in particular the life of the cities, that change day by day, so fast. For example, in March 2011 I was visiting New York City, walking everywhere and taking pictures. I remember when, on the 59th Street in Manhattan, I saw this man having a cigarette break outside an Italian restaurant, characterized by a beautiful and huge red wall. I loved that scene, the contrast between the red of the building and that white dressed man. It’s one of my favorite street photos I took in NYC.
So, this is how was that wall in 2011, this is the picture I’m talking about:
A couple of years ago, from Rome, where I live, I decided to search the restaurant online and try to reach that man to send a print of this photo as a gift. I thought it could be a nice idea and he could be happy to have this photo. So I tried to “walk” in New York City again thanks to Google Street View and I found out that the restaurant was replaced by another place but, the worst thing, that beautiful red wall didn’t exist anymore.
This is the same spot in 2020 (image taken by Google):
And this is how it looks today (image taken by Google):
I was disappointed when I saw how different was that place, that I love so much in my photo. The good thing is that I was there in the right moment to take a nice picture of a beautiful place and the teaching as a photographer is that everything changes, everyday, and photography is really important to tell, for the future, how is the world, or just the cities, today, in this time we’are living. This is really important, I guess.
Living is easy with one eye closed 