Last night my wife and I drove to Santa Fe and attended the public viewing of Review Santa Fe, a portfolio review featuring 100 up and coming photographers. It’s an international event, and I felt fortunate to be here for it.  We were able to meet a photographer, Jerry Redfern, who has lived in Cambodia and worked in the surrounding countries. I also met his wife, a journalist who has written the best introduction to Cambodia that I’ve read. It’s very readable book I’d recommend for anyone traveling or planning to live in Cambodia. It’s called Cambodia Now.  She also writes an award winning food blog.

My wife came up to me midway through the event and invited me to see a picture that left her “breathless.” I followed immediately, wondering what kind of picture would have such an effect on her. She led me to Emily Shur’s table.  Last night she was showing a portfolio of images from Japan, forsaking the popular idea of Japan in favor of the “banality” that most Japanese see every day.

As she flipped through her stack of large prints, I did a double-take. I was looking at a picture of the apartment building where we lived for the past two years. Imagine the odds of that. Tokyo is one of the largest cities in the world. Our place was a five minute walk away a train station on the edge of the city, and she walked by and took a picture of our parking lot, and then we met and saw it in Santa Fe.

Here’s the photo as seen  on her blog.

White Buildings, Takao, 2009 (Emily Shur)