anne saint-pierre

Every year at summer solstice, the sun is aligned with the East–West streets of Manhattan, at sunrise or sunset, prompting primal feelings of adoration for the light which, to be honest, is not always the first thing people remember about New York City.

In Washington Heights at the corner of my home is a park, a playground and a fountain. Five years ago, I stumbled upon kids engaged in water play there and was struck by the meditative aspect of their games. I have been photographing them since, except in 2020 because of Covid, precisely at the time (7:45pm) when rays of orange light transform the playground into a spell-binding shadow play.

For it is another nature which speaks to the camera rather than to the eye (Walter Benjamin). Asking families, often in a few words of Spanish, if I can photograph their children (“Please don’t mind me”), shooting against the sun by feeling only, I find images to become more and more abstract over the years, as if children and teens through their dance eluded representation, sliding instead behind the mirror of water.