When we make photographs, we are participating in a conversation that takes place across temporal space. To press the shutter is to pull a slice from the unyielding flow of time, to hold a moment still, so that we may linger on moments of connection and beauty that would otherwise evaporate as quickly as light can move. Our language is visual- these sentences are constructed in motifs, juxtapositions, color theory, and compositional weight. It's a language we can never fully master, but we can always deepen our fluency, every new insight learned is compounded in the reservoir that we draw from, and from this ever-deeper well, new ideas emerge and break through the surface, showing us new ways to see. One of my favorite photographers who sees the world in her own complex and poetic way is Monaris. She is able to filter the chaos of city life through a sensitive and thoughtful lens, highlighting the humanity that turns these cathedrals of concrete into living, breathing, communities. A city without its people is just an inert structure, and to find the moments that breathed life into an inorganic place is a subtle and clever talent. -Dave Krugman