Mario Ramirez on personification through a lens.

“Urban fabric, the objects of everyday city life. Although not really pretty, each object has an almost human personality about it. There are thousands if not millions of instances like this in an urban setting, and the East Village is not immune to them.”

“Things we might overlook come into play as we become more observant around us of the order that is everywhere. We just have to open our eyes.”

“Oye means ‘hey, look here,’ in Spanish, and I was drawn to it because it felt like it was urging me to look in its direction.”

“I was feeling nostalgic for the things that are rarer or not so common in our lives anymore, so using my camera I feel that I captured something that’s been embedded into my memory of the past. Capturing snippets of the past is a big theme in my photographs and I can’t help but think of the East Village as medium to explore this form of photographic archeology.”

“It was a cloudy and rainy early Friday evening, but looking into the camera viewfinder everything in the present reality, the spring blossom of the tree, the reddish orange of the banners and paper lamps, stonework, and Japanese characters merged into something make believe, almost like a stage set.”

“I had to capture this because at first it was confusing as to what was a window and what was a door. Upon further observation, one realizes that a four panel door was appropriated to be part of the facade, and not as an entrance into a space – that is real creativity, or was it founded upon necessity? Who knows and who cares?”

“There is almost a haphazard, but ordered quality to the procession of furniture items with the last being an analog non computerized typewriter. Very much like the nature of the East Village itself , which is a mixture of the very old, the modern, and a tinge of nostalgia that leads us back to our pasts. Sometimes while Downtown I wonder of all the ghosts, if you believe in that stuff, that exist amidst the living residents – what stories they could tell!”

Mario Ramirez is community contributor to The Local East Village. He is an interior designer by trade and a photographer for fun. His photography can be seen here and here.