Ruins

I went out to test again my 50mm/f.1.4 lens. It was a very dull day, with heavy clouds filling the Bethlehem sky, and light was low. Probably not an ideal day for pictures - I thought at first, but once out in the street I felt it had an atmosphere of its own, with very few colors, people and sounds in the air. I walked through back streets, everything looked grey and dirty white, all around and above me. I reached a square where an odd monument stands up, an abstract shape of bronze surrounded by lamp posts still holding Christmas decorations which nobody bothered to remove after the season. Behind it, a deserted building, pieces of cement and concrete, rubble. I entered. Who knows why, I felt attracted by the nothingness inside. I took some pictures, here testing the lens, there trying to focus on a subject. Inside the walls in ruins I felt quite tight with the 50mm lens, while outside it was working better. But the roofless ground and the metal skeleton of bars were somewhat special. This is not the kind of place I would usually look for, and I felt I was out of my place, out of my day. But may be that's exactly why I could see something different. Most probably I wouldn't have shown these pictures if I had not come across Peter Fraser's work, shortly afterwards. No doubt, his work has encouraged me to look differently at such places of broken stillness.