Shai Ashkenazi

Manifesto

Black-and-white photograph: A horizontal blur of motion in bands of grey, white and black

The world has never moved faster.

We scroll.
We rush.
We move on.

Somewhere along the way,
we forgot how to notice.

Photography became my way of slowing down.

Not to escape life.

But to pay attention to it.

The moments between the moments.

A gesture.
A glance.
A shadow.
A stranger passing.
Someone reaching for someone else.

Things that last only for a second.

Most of life happens there.

Black-and-white photograph: A man with a rolling bag waits on a subway platform, framed between dark pillars at Columbus Circle

Photography taught me that the ordinary is never really ordinary.

You just have to stay long enough to see it.

Black-and-white photograph: A white swan on dark water, its wings raised in the shape of a heart

Attention is an act of love.

To photograph someone is to say:

I see you.

This mattered.

You were here.

Maybe that is why I keep walking.

Why I keep waiting.

Why after all these years I am still curious about what might happen around the next corner.

Black-and-white photograph: Light and shadow on rippling dark water

I don’t want people to remember my photographs.

I want them to leave looking differently at their own lives.

Until then,

I’ll keep walking.

I’ll keep waiting.

And I’ll keep choosing to notice.

Black-and-white photograph: The sun just above a dark hill, its light reflected on rippling water

NOTICE.

Next — The Work →