The idea was to make a photography book literally by hand instead of by plugging images digitally into a slick looking, hi-tech number for the Internet. To mitigate the fear factor, I experimented with what was most familiar—the City Quiet series I’d shot (lived with) from 2003 to 2010.

From thousands of seemingly unrelated images, I pulled out random ones I liked, threw batches of them on the table and sorted them into groups to see if a little story might develop. For sure, any relationship that might appear had been purely unintentional. But to my surprise, well to be honest, to my delight, after a lot of shuffling around, adding some shots here and weeding out others there, eventually there it was—the raw material for a very short city story.

I immediately went out and bought a little red book—the color seemed to go with the story. Then I cut out the images and fastened them with double-stick tape to the book. Simple hand-written sentences accompanied a scenario that theoretically could occur any time, any day, in the city.

The Little Red Book ultimately became a truly personal book for me, because personal is what my work is all about. Its story is one that may or may not exist while I’m out on the streets roaming around, which makes me wonder… what is going on in some of the scenes I shoot, what is going on in people’s lives at that time? What are they running to/running from, waiting for, thinking about, feeling, what’s their story as I freeze their intimate moments? I don’t know, will never know, perhaps don’t want to know. But the story in The Little Red Book could have happened.

It makes me think about how many other city stories are hiding in my years of city images. And how many new stories are out there waiting to be told.