I have lived and worked in and around NYC for a little bit over a decade. For my first month in NY, a portuguese friend from a rich family lent me a studio apartment just ten steps from MoMA in a building named "The Aristocrat". Every few years I have managed to move to bigger and cheaper spaces, but ironically I have been getting farther and farther away from the entrance to MoMA...

Although I have being strolling around Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Newark for about twelve years, just in February I started to drift through their streets with a Leica. With no purpose and no direction I just walk towards whatever incites my attention. Sometimes I just shoot at random. More often than not, Union Square acts as a center of gravity where I start or end the dérive.

I don't think there is a clear theme or mood in these photographs as there might be in my photos of San Juan and Mexico. Somehow that summarizes my relation to the city. As Georges Perec could have said, I love being in New York, but sometimes I don't.