Most first-time tourists to New York head out to busy Times Square and other parts of touristy Manhattan, seeking to feel the continuous flow of 24h life that ‘the city that never sleeps’ is known for.
Less explored are Brooklyn and the Coney Island peninsula, the Bronx, Harlem, and East or Spanish Harlem known as ‘El Barrio’. In these parts of the city, and even in Manhattan, if one takes the time to stroll with a curious mind and observe, one can find peaceful places and situations when people take a break, share a kiss or some intimate silence, enjoy the present moment, or take the time to reflect. It is such isolated and quiet instants that I tried to capture during my 19 months in New York as a dance student and photographer for Ice Theatre of New York. I photographed some of these 20 images during renowned photojournalist Peter Turnley’s 2012 New York photography workshop, and a couple of them were presented in my exhibition Flow and Reflections in Moscow, Russia in March 2015. In New York too, one can find peace, silence, and serenity.
About Florence Gallez
Florence Gallez is an independent documentary photojournalist and black and white photographer from Brussels, Belgium, currently based in Paris. Gallez received a BA degree in English and Russian from the University of London in 1996, an MSc in journalism from Boston University in 1999, and a digital media focused MSc from MIT in 2012. She spent eight years as a Moscow-based journalist covering Russian politics, economics, society, and culture for The Moscow Times, the U.S. publisher Bureau of National Affairs (Bloomberg BNA), and most recently CNN’s Moscow Bureau. As a photographer of social documentaries, she seeks to bring more visibility to people who are in challenging situations and often not cared for by society, especially women and children. In Paris, she is also contributing local and international news and social documentaries to the French photo agency Wostok Press.
