A subconscious window affair
Every time I travel, I take my humble little Nikon 3100 for a ride on her 35mm lens, which makes her shots look like a million bucks. Every time I start exploring a city on foot, I can’t help but move parallel to the buildings, trivially admire their architecture, only to switch my humble little friend on and point it to the sky. There’s something about capturing the window straight from below and catching a small glimpse of the sky that really, really gets to me.
Although psychology is not my major and I’m not particularly studying to attain a degree in that field of study, it’s my passion, and so I’ve read — and I keep reading — my fair share of research on its most infinite subjects. So I enjoy spending a little (cof, cof: a lot) of time psychoanalyzing myself and looking for patterns. Mental and behavioural patterns.
With this, I’ve tried to figure out why I’m so obsessively focused on photographing windows in a way that is almost absurd. I mean, I’m perfectly okay with 70% of my travel photographs being windows, and when I actually manage to capture the actual building, I have this very strange habit of chopping the street out of the frame and only capturing the window portion. And only seldom do those photographs look nice or peculiarly compelling. But after giving it some thought, I finally got it — why I’m so stuck on the aesthetic concept of windows. I relate to them.
Us — humans. We are, in fact, windows.
Some are big, tall, and intimidating. Impressive, transparent, and absolutely panoramic — they give you the most breathtaking views without even needing to be opened wide. Some are tiny, so small that they appear to be insignificant — until the sun begins to rise and in the middle of a very dark room you realize how valuable it is to enjoy that brim of light that the minuscule window is giving you. Some you want to open — because you feel suffocated and confined when you don’t. Some you don’t because once you do, you’ll be tempted to peek at the view, but they’re built on a 100-story building, and looking down might give you vertigo and make you feel dizzy. Some have an easy mechanism that simplifies the opening process — smooth and effortless. Some are so damaged by the winds of time, that the rust prevents them from opening without maximal effort. And others are so stuck, so completely glued to their own frame that no matter how hard you try to force the entry, it just won’t cut it.
All the same, you say: “Windows aren’t like humans because humans aspire to find their one and windows are just… well… windows”. So, that’s another issue that I’ve encountered and pondered in this theory. However, the explanation is actually quite simple. First of all, there is such a thing as the right window for you and the… well… not-so-right one. For some, in order to reach their height, you will have to stand on the tip of your toes. For others, you will have to arch your back and bend your knees. Then you’ll find a few that will be impossible to reach, no matter how much you exhaust your calves. As a matter of fact, those unfeasible ones will surely put your ambition to the test, doubtlessly drain you, and yet, you will get nothing but a millisecond glimpse of a view you won’t get to peacefully enjoy.
Also, as humans, windows are tenacious, their structure is anchored and their function is everlasting — they are not as fixed as they appear. Natural disasters can damage them, outsiders can destroy their composition, and time can naturally alter their morphology. Within each of those main subjects, you have subcategories. They can indeed vary in shape, size, and ease of use, but most importantly: they are endlessly varied in transparency. Whether they are big, small, easy to open, or forever stuck in their lack of function, their glass is what actually makes them purposeful or utterly useless. They can also be covered with drapes, curtains, and blinds, or embellished with cute little artifacts such as glow-in-the-dark stickers and festive ornaments. But here, we’re just going to analyze their essence.
They can be naturally clear, opaque, or stand in that mid-range. All three stand for their purpose and the origin of their transparency (or lack of) can greatly vary. They can be naturally tainted in shade, or they could be more opaque due to external factors — such as dirt and dust, excessive sunlight, temperature fluctuations, and other independent occurrences. For the most part, you will say that you love the super clear glass windows because they’re clean and their scenery is uncomplicated. Then you’ll remember that mid-range glass opacity is practical for daily situations so you’re not so worried that strangers will look through them to find you in your habitat, doing whatever it is that you like to do in your personal setting. Finally, you’ll realize that opaque windows have this intriguing mystique that can really entertain you with a story and make you wonder if their obscurity is innate or consequential.
Nonetheless, the most interesting aspect of windows is that picking a “favorite type” is close to impossible because, like humans, they can serve their duty in different moments and it’s very possible to be standing in front of one window and admire the ones on the front-facing building or even the one down below. Considering it as such isn’t particularly a sign of sociopathy or heartlessness. It’s just a sign of that good, old, absolutely ravishing thing denominated as “realism”.
And it’s not a transgression. It’s no sin to wonder how different the view is from over there. See what I did there? I didn’t write “better” or “worse”, I wrote different — because there is no such thing as better or worse. Just different, or socially acceptable or not. So, how do you eventually single them out? Here, adaptability and simultaneous conviction are key. Either you take your pick and risk it all for the view, or you continue standing in your pretty little corner and see nothing but the sun crawling up and down from the same standard window you were born into and that you’ve been peeping through for the past decades.
