‘A whole year looking out the window’ is a series that came to life through the exploration of photography as a contemplative practice to find inner peace. As the UK and Colombia (my home country) came into the first lockdown in March 2020, one of the ways I found to fight the anxiety of such a strange moment in history was to grab my camera and take photos of my surroundings. This was not intended as an opportunistic time to “do all the projects I haven’t done in normal life”, but only as an exercise of contemplation while spending more time at home. The first time I grabbed my camera was on March 26th 2020, but only months later I noticed I had been taking pretty much the same photo of the view from our flat in Edinburgh.
One of the changes from pre-lockdown times was now the silence in the flat: the building to the right of the photo is a primary school, which of course was empty for most of the year and used to be filled with the noise of children playing during their breaks.
To say I took a photo every day of the past year would be a lie, but looking back I find comfort in seeing the changes between times of the day and seasons, as well as to have been able to capture moments where I found myself just contemplating the landscape that was in front of me, with its different weather changes. In the end, for me this series is a reflection of the circularity of time, as well as of the many lives that have been lost over the past year. There is also a happy noise, as children in the school’s playground are back. There is hope.
One of the changes from pre-lockdown times was now the silence in the flat: the building to the right of the photo is a primary school, which of course was empty for most of the year and used to be filled with the noise of children playing during their breaks.
To say I took a photo every day of the past year would be a lie, but looking back I find comfort in seeing the changes between times of the day and seasons, as well as to have been able to capture moments where I found myself just contemplating the landscape that was in front of me, with its different weather changes. In the end, for me this series is a reflection of the circularity of time, as well as of the many lives that have been lost over the past year. There is also a happy noise, as children in the school’s playground are back. There is hope.
