People watching is something we all do. Some of us only do it out of situational boredom, some of us do it everywhere all the time, and some of us even go out of our way to people watch, like going to the zoo or the museum except, instead of looking at animals, fine art, or ancient relics, we study one another.



The photographs included in this book are the fruits of four years of people watching (with a camera dangling from my neck, of course). At first glance, there is nothing extraordinary about these pictures. One might say they are just banal snapshots of people going about their daily lives. But, if studied carefully, these frozen moments in time reveal some small truths about human nature that escape our ever-diminishing awareness in our ever-overburdened lives.



While these photographs provide some insight into the lives of several strangers, their states of mind, and the environments they inhabit, these pictures also seem to ask as many questions as they answer. Though the viewer has an infinite amount of time to study these quotidian scenes, the observer's knowledge is always limited. Nothing certain can ever be known about the unrevealed stories of the strangers in question. That is to say that these photographs are somewhat like riddles without answers. Like novels with missing pages. Like exercises in patience and imagination.