As if they were motion picture stills, the images in this book make up a sequence of people and scenes of the Calle Junín, one of the best-known thoroughfares in Medellín, Colombia. The concept of the book is the result of the fascination and nostalgia produced by the photos of passersby on the street, taken by the fotocineros, or street photographers, of the city.
The texts, which are laid out perpendicular to the images, evoke the sense of movement . . . of walking. In this way, the photographs—treasured souvenirs, for their owners, of the alliance of love and memory—bring us back to a by- gone age, recapturing the clothing, cars, buildings, advertisements, shops, and display windows that provided the setting for the ephemeral strolls of pedestrians in Medellín.
For almost three years, from 2005 to 2008, some 400 photographs were col- lected to form the basis of this book, an exploration of street portraiture, of Colombian fotocinería, and of the snapshots of passersby taken by the thou- sands on the Calle de Junín. It is a volume full of echoes and reflections, of a few lost steps, frozen in time by the magic of photography.
