Old and New – A Quiet Encounter

Sometimes history is right in front of us, in masonry that has withstood the wind and in stones that carry memories. And sometimes something new rises behind it: cool, geometric and clear. In glass and steel, the present tells its own story of the future.

This photograph was no accident. I made it on an overcast day in Oslo, when the light was muted, almost restrained. That was precisely the light that allowed the colours of the old bricks to glow and the modern architecture behind them to appear in its clear form.

I deliberately positioned myself where the old wall opens up the view towards the new. It is a composition of contrasts, but also of connection.
Old and new do not meet by chance. They belong together.

As a photographer I often look for these in-between spaces: places where the subject does not speak loudly, but the moment between things does.
The depth lies neither in the foreground nor in the background, but in the relationship between them.

Such contrasts are everywhere in the city, but they are often fleeting. If you walk too quickly, all you see is one thing or the other.