I'n'I
I’n’I Design Studio / Notice

The Distance Between Us

The city, from here.

I took these photographs from the same place.

Fourteen floors above the ground, looking out from my home toward a city I could see clearly but could not touch.

A city skyline at dusk seen from far away, a single spired tower rising under long bands of pink and violet cloud.
Plate 01The Far Side of Near

I began to notice how little the view stayed the same.

Some mornings the skyline disappeared almost completely. On others, the buildings became silhouettes against a sky that seemed to be on fire. Clouds moved in and swallowed whole neighborhoods. The sun slipped between towers. The moon hovered over rooftops. Light traveled across glass and concrete and, for a few minutes, made a familiar city unfamiliar again.

A red sun sinking behind distant apartment towers in haze, the dark silhouette of a turreted building in the foreground.
Plate 02The Sun, Between Us
The skyline in silhouette under a burning red and deep blue sky, a tall dark apartment block in front and a lit street running toward the river.
Plate 03Before the Light Forgets Us
A pink and violet cloud bank over a pale orange sky, the skyline a flat black silhouette along the bottom of the frame.
Plate 04Above All Else
Two church domes in silhouette against an orange horizon, with the towers of the city lit beyond them.
Plate 05A Higher Calling
A rainbow coming down through a dark grey sky onto the dome and cross of a church, with the lit towers of the city beyond.
Plate 06A Matter of Faith
A vast sky of red and violet cloud over the whole skyline at sunrise, a single dark tower standing in the foreground.
Plate 07Audacity
Slender towers in black silhouette against a streaked red and orange sky.
Plate 08Heart of the Matter

There was always distance between me and what I was seeing — windows, rooftops, neighborhoods, miles of air. But distance didn’t make the view feel less intimate. Somehow, watching from here made me pay closer attention.

The sun caught between two towers beneath a heavy band of cloud, the city dissolving into orange haze.
Plate 09Mystic Rising
A full moon over a cluster of glass towers and a pyramid-shaped building, rooftops glowing in evening light below.
Plate 10Her Turn

I didn’t have to go anywhere to find these photographs.

I only had to keep looking.

These photographs were made across that space.

The distance between us.

Towering orange storm clouds over a dark sky, the city small along the bottom edge with a thin shaft of rain.
Plate 11Beyond Measure

Photographs + words by Linda Virtue

← Back to Notice Look closer → Explore prints →