Photographer Keith Goldstein never found lower Manhattan that interesting to look at until he noticed where New Yorkers and tourists themselves were looking — up, where the new World Trade Center building towers over the city and the memory of 9/11 attacks.
“I think with this project what I wanted to do was capture peoples emotions of grief, despair, happiness, awe, longing, hoping — as many diverse emotions as there are people,” says Goldstein, who prefers to photograph the looks on bystanders’ faces without detection. To do this, he uses a small camera, often snapping his photos without even glancing through the viewfinder at his subjects.
“One would almost call it a drive-by,” he says, “except I walk by.”
More Must-Reads From TIME
- Here's What's in the Debt Ceiling Deal
- How Worried Should the World Be of China's New COVID Wave?
- Succession Was a Race to the Bottom, And Everybody Won
- What Erdoğan’s Victory Means for Turkey—and the World
- The Ancient Roots of Psychotherapy
- How Drag Culture Inspired Ursula
- Drought Crisis Spurs U.S.-Mexico Collaboration
- Florence Pugh Might Just Save the Movie Star From Extinction