What In Passing Is
In Passing is not a photographic genre.
It is not defined by the camera, by a visual style, by a subject matter or by a technical process.
Photography is simply the medium through which the work becomes visible.
The project begins much earlier.
It begins in the brief moment when something that had no apparent significance quietly interrupts ordinary attention.
A wall.
A reflection.
A damaged surface.
A temporary arrangement.
A shadow.
An unexpected relationship between objects.
None of these things asks to become an image.
Most never do.
Some cannot be ignored.
Those moments form In Passing.
Not a Collection of Photographs
The works collected in In Passing are not intended to demonstrate photographic skill, aesthetic virtuosity or technical perfection.
They are records of encounters.
Each image exists because attention briefly settled somewhere without instruction, expectation or purpose.
Nothing had been searched for.
Nothing had been planned.
Nothing had been staged.
The photograph simply preserves the moment after attention had already made its decision.
For this reason, the project should not be understood primarily as a body of photographs.
It is a collection of moments in which ordinary reality unexpectedly resisted being overlooked.
The Origin of Every Image
Most photography begins with an intention.
A photographer decides to document architecture, people, landscapes, street life, fashion, wildlife or social situations.
The category already exists before the first image is made.
In Passing follows a different logic.
Nothing is selected in advance.
Attention receives no assignment.
There is no checklist of desirable subjects.
No expectation of visual success.
No search for spectacular scenes.
Instead, the work begins when attention unexpectedly comes to rest.
Only afterwards does photography begin.
The image is therefore not the origin of the work.
It is its consequence.
Why Ordinary Places Matter
Many photographs derive their strength from exceptional subjects.
Remarkable architecture.
Dramatic events.
Extraordinary people.
Rare landscapes.
Visual spectacle.
In Passing moves in the opposite direction.
Its interest lies in places that possess no obvious photographic importance.
The ordinary remains ordinary.
Nothing is transformed into symbolism simply because it has been photographed.
Nothing becomes meaningful because an explanation has been added afterwards.
The images do not argue that everything is beautiful.
They suggest something quieter.
That attention occasionally discovers significance where importance had never been assigned.
Attention Without Instruction
Human attention is normally directed by purpose.
We look in order to navigate.
To identify.
To compare.
To decide.
To avoid obstacles.
To complete tasks.
Most of the visible world disappears into functional certainty.
In Passing begins when this functional rhythm briefly fails.
Something interrupts it.
No reason is immediately available.
No interpretation is required.
Attention simply remains where it had not intended to remain.
This moment cannot be produced on demand.
It can only be recognised once it occurs.
That recognition is the beginning of every work.
Found, Not Constructed
The project does not attempt to manufacture visual meaning.
Nothing is arranged.
Nothing is fabricated.
Nothing is digitally invented in order to create conceptual depth.
The situations already existed.
The photographer merely arrived at the moment when they became impossible to ignore.
Editing may refine tone, contrast or colour so that the final work corresponds more closely to the experience of seeing.
It does not invent the encounter itself.
The distinction is therefore not between edited and unedited photography.
It is between constructed images and discovered moments.
Why the Images Remain Open
Many contemporary photographic projects accompany each work with an explanation.
The image becomes evidence for an idea.
An illustration of a concept.
A visual argument.
In Passing deliberately avoids this.
The images are not puzzles waiting to be solved.
Neither are they philosophical statements disguised as photographs.
They remain open because the original encounter was open.
No explanation accompanied the moment in which attention stopped.
The work therefore should not close what originally remained unresolved.
Its openness is not an absence of meaning.
It is part of its form.
The Role of Language
Language accompanies the works carefully.
It does not interpret them.
Each image receives only a short title.
The title does not describe the subject.
It does not explain the photograph.
It does not direct interpretation.
It simply creates a small resonance around the image.
Words such as
interim
almost
fault line
suspension
residue
beacon
do not complete the work.
They merely stand beside it.
The image remains the primary encounter.
Numbering the Collection
Every work becomes part of an ongoing archive.
Rather than functioning as isolated photographs, the images belong to a continuously growing collection.
Each work therefore receives a sequential number.
In Passing · No. 027
Düsseldorf · 2026
The numbering does not indicate importance.
It records belonging.
Every image becomes one observation among many.
Together they gradually describe a particular way of looking rather than a particular subject.
What In Passing Is Not
In Passing is not street photography.
Although many works are made in public spaces, urban life is not their subject.
It is not architecture photography.
Buildings appear because attention stopped there, not because architecture was the objective.
It is not documentary photography.
The images record reality without attempting to explain it.
It is not minimal photography.
It is not conceptual photography.
It is not visual poetry.
It is not an archive of beautiful places.
The project cannot be defined by what appears within the frame.
Its identity lies entirely in how the image came into existence.
A Different Relationship with Photography
Photography has traditionally been described through questions such as:
- What was photographed?
- Where was it photographed?
- Why was it photographed?
- Which technique was used?
- Which aesthetic tradition does it belong to?
In Passing begins one step earlier.
It asks a different question.
What happened before the photograph became inevitable?
The answer is never theoretical.
Attention paused.
Everything else followed.
The Relationship to Structiography
Structiography and In Passing originate from the same curiosity, but they travel in different directions.
Structiography investigates the structures that shape visible reality.
Its images become starting points for structural inquiry.
In Passing does not investigate.
It notices.
Its interest lies in the brief instant before analysis begins.
One project asks:
What makes this situation possible?
The other asks:
Why did attention stop here?
Neither project replaces the other.
Together they explore two different dimensions of seeing.
Structiography studies structure.
In Passing preserves encounter.
A Growing Archive of Attention
The collection has no predetermined conclusion.
There is no fixed theme.
No annual programme.
No requirement that future works resemble earlier ones.
Only one criterion remains constant.
Every image must originate from the same kind of encounter.
It must be found rather than sought.
Recognised rather than planned.
Observed before it became a subject.
The project grows only as long as these encounters continue to occur.
The Position of the Viewer
The viewer is not expected to reconstruct the photographer’s thoughts.
No hidden message needs to be discovered.
No correct interpretation exists.
The work simply invites the viewer to remain with the image long enough for personal attention to unfold.
Sometimes nothing further happens.
Sometimes a detail slowly becomes visible.
Sometimes another memory emerges.
Sometimes the image remains entirely silent.
All of these responses are equally legitimate.
The work asks only one thing.
To look without immediately asking what the image is supposed to mean.
The Central Idea
In Passing is built upon a simple conviction.
Attention does not always follow importance.
Sometimes importance follows attention.
The world is full of places that nobody intended to notice.
Yet occasionally one of them quietly refuses to disappear.
Those moments cannot be manufactured.
They can only be recognised.
The photograph preserves what attention briefly refused to leave behind.
Nothing here was chosen because it mattered.
It mattered because it was noticed.
Short Profile
In Passing is an ongoing collection of discovered moments.
The works originate from brief encounters in which ordinary reality unexpectedly interrupts attention.
Photography serves as the medium, but the work begins before the camera is raised.
Nothing is staged.
Nothing is assigned.
Nothing is explained afterwards.
Each image preserves a moment that quietly resisted being overlooked.
Together the works form an archive of noticed reality.
Closing Statement
In Passing collects what attention briefly refused to leave behind.
This article was created within The Second Thinking Space, a framework based on the idea that complex structures are rarely understood from within a single perspective. Generative AI was used as a second thinking space for exploration, intellectual confrontation, generation of optimised text suggestions, and pattern recognition, while all interpretations and conclusions remain the responsibility of the author.
R2049 