Introduction by Walter Krochmal, Founder and Executive Director

The Spirit, She Rises to Greet Me is my first-ever photo exhibit. It reflects a lifetime of adventures and misadventures, and because the images stretch all the way back to the acquisition of my first cell phone camera and digital camera back in 1997 (quite advanced for the time), it also draws the arc of this technology’s growth from infancy to what we could now call its young adulthood and how the world has changed.

It encompasses my travels in Honduras, Israel, France and Festival de Cannes, Italy, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, and across the length and breadth of the five boroughs of New York City over the course of four decades living here (on foot, on bicycle and on public transportation), then finally in recent times to the Balkans and points east.

The exhibit springs from what started out as a simple desire to review unexplored areas of endeavor, in this case digital photography, in search of articles of value to which I had not given due attention. Digging into almost three decades of materials gathered while off-handedly documenting what was before me with what I had available revealed to me a vast, unsuspected treasure trove that clamored for an exhibition. Thus motivated, I took on an exhaustive process of compilation, selection, categorization, treatment, printing and archiving which resulted in what you will see in The Spirit, She Rises to Greet Me.

My eye travels to urban art, performance and the stage (which I was practically born on), architecture, nightscapes and cityscapes, the comedic/irreverent, the quirky and the awe-inspiring, abstraction and the random details that emerge from a city when you explore it with mind and senses wide open. Travel the world with that principle leading the way and you will find that all cities and places welcome you. That is why I chose the title, because when the resting woman spirit that gives breath to a city senses my steps from afar… The Spirit, She Rises to Greet Me.