Yusif Zadeh
The project was born at a time when the world stood still in anticipation of the unknown. Suddenly, familiar spaces became motionless, streets emptied, and cities turned into backdrops devoid of their usual human presence. A shift in rhythm changed the way we perceive our surroundings: places we once considered mere backgrounds to daily life became independent narratives, revealing the beauty of silence and the depth of the ordinary.
At its core, this project explores the quiet transformations of the city, shaped by shifting histories. Through a minimalist vision, it captures the subtle traces of change—empty spaces, evolving structures, and the quiet resilience embedded in the urban environment. Rather than focusing on overt signs of upheaval, the work highlights the small, often overlooked details that reveal how cities adapt, rebuild, and redefine themselves over time.
It is an observation of transition, where simplicity becomes a language for memory, continuity, and renewal. The author captures moments when space speaks for itself, when light, form, and the absence of familiar hustle and bustle take on special significance. The photographs transport the viewer into a world where every detail is filled with meaning, where the absence of people reveals unexpected symmetry, the purity of lines, and the hidden rhythm of the urban environment. In these restrained compositions, absence carries as much weight as presence, and the gaps between past and present are felt in the spaces left behind.
The project raises the question of how our perception of space changed when the familiar became inaccessible and the well-known—unexpectedly new. The city is neither a monument to the past nor a vision of the future—it is a quiet negotiation between what remains and what is yet to come. This project serves as a reminder of a time when the world slowed down, allowing us to see our surroundings differently—with attention, with reverence, and with a desire to find beauty in places where it had previously gone unnoticed. www.zadeh.photo
