Perfect Strangers
Melissa O’Shaughnessy

For the past seven years, I have been photographing regularly on the streets of New York City. I am enthralled by the beauty and the variety of the perfect strangers I chance upon, and try to capture my delight in the energy and chaos that the city serves up to the careful onlooker.

Like most big cities around the world, the cloud of Covid-19 has turned New York into a quieter shadow of its former self. I hope these photographs stand as a reminder of what this great city once was–and what it might be again when the pandemic has receded into our collective memories.

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