Shadow Step

A Thousand Words / June 5, 2019

I sat near the entrance of the last synagogue on our Jewish Museum tour, tired from the long day. A glance to my right was composed of over 20 chatting girls, cameras in hand; a glance to my left followed the timeline of gentle sun rays as they made their way through an elevated window and invaded the creased forehead of this man.

I can’t tell you how many times I hesitated to raise my arms to make the picture and then decided against it. There was just something so powerful yet so gentle about the moment and I knew that no picture would even begin to comprehend. Other segments of our tour consisted of a walk through the Pinkas Synagogue and the Old Jewish Synagogue –  two places that make every step you take heavier and heavier. Scanning walls filled with the over 80,000 names of real people who endured real torture was not a light thing. Realizing that I was walking among individuals who were actually directly affected by this tragedy was even harder to swallow.

Situations such as this really force me to step back and question my motives in photographing these intimate moments. My hope is to one day be able to convey the weight of the moment in this frame. The weight of the walls in the Pinkas Synagogue that hold the history of thousands like you and me. The weight that I felt for only an instant, but one that lingers on the shoulders of many relatives today.