Windows #1 (2016) Photography by Humberto Lemos

In the Windows series, Humberto Lemos crafts a delicate crossing between movement and contemplation. The photographs were taken from the windows of trains traveling through northern Japan, yet what we see is not the tremor of time — but its suspension. Like a visual haiku, each image frames the landscape in oval shapes that evoke not only the actual windows of the train, but also the tradition of Japanese prints, where nature is depicted with reverence and simplicity.

Lemos turns the window into both mirror and threshold: the outer world becomes an inner image, mediated by speed and filtered through the gaze. The trees, mostly bare, suggest winter or the end of a cycle, expanding the silence and spatiality of the compositions. At the same time, there’s an almost graphic quality in the lines of the branches, reminiscent of the careful strokes in ukiyo-e, the classic Japanese woodblock print genre.

The choice of black and white enhances the timelessness of the series and removes any precise sense of location. In doing so, the work shifts the viewer into a space of visual meditation, where the rhythm of the train gives way to the inner rhythm of the image. Windows is, above all, an invitation to pause — a breath between what es and what remains.

Related themes

Black And White Nature