Photographer Gail Albert Halaban knows how to indulge a guilty pleasure. With her Out My Window series, the American photographer captures city apartments around the world, with a special emphasis on those who live in them. Albert Halaban’s photographs aren’t strictly architectural, and serve more as intimate glimpses into people’s apartments and, by extension, their private lives.
Though Out My Window is certainly voyeuristic on the surface, it’s far from it in practice. Albert Halaban closely collaborates with apartment residents, seeking their permission and participation in staging the images she’ll ultimately photograph. In these scenes, people enjoy casual dinners, play with children, dance, watch TV, and everything in between, demonstrating a wide range of lived experiences within urban environments.
At first, it almost feels invasive to encounter these photographs. Who are these people, and why have we been invited to witness their daily routines? It’s this curiosity, however, that Albert Halaban hopes to evoke. We’re meant to reflect not only upon Albert Halaban’s subjects, but upon our own neighbors and the rich lives they lead as well. In turn, a sense of connection is achieved.
“If you imagine the lives of your neighbors when you look in the windows of my photographs,” Albert Halaban explains to My Modern Met, “I think you will realize that we have more that connects us than separates us.”
Selections from Out My Window are currently being showcased at Galerie XII in Los Angeles. Open until April 26, 2025, the exhibition traces Albert Halaban’s relationship with her subjects across several cities, including New York, Paris, Rome, Buenos Aires, and Venice.
We had the chance to speak with Gail Albert Halaban about her photographic process and the evolution of her Out My Window series. Read on for My Modern Met’s exclusive interview with the photographer.
What originally drew you to photography as your preferred medium?
I’ve loved photography all my life! My mom helped me make a pinhole camera for my first grade science fair. I got first place! My mom always had a darkroom in our basement, so I got a chance to learn and to play with the chemistry and the papers as a child. I’ve always loved it.
What intrigues you about urban environments, windows, and apartments as photographic subjects?
People often say the city is lonely because you don’t know your neighbors. I actually feel the opposite. I feel like, in a city, you can never be lonely because you’re never alone. If you look into a neighbor’s window, you always have a sense of community.
How do you decide which apartment buildings to feature within your photographs?
The way I decide which buildings to include in my pictures varies a bit. My favorite way to choose is simply when somebody invites me over to share the view out their window that they love. Together, we then go meet the neighbors and ask permission. That’s absolutely my favorite way to decide where to shoot.
So, if any of your readers have great views out their window, I hope they share it with me. I also pick buildings where I love the architect or the building for some other reason. For example, if I walk by a building often and wonder who lives there, I might leave a note for the residents to ask if I could take a picture.
What is the process of creating one of your voyeuristic photographs, and how do you and your subjects collaborate to create these?
The process of taking my pictures is a little bit labor-intensive. First, I identify which building I’m going to shoot from. Then, we have to figure out how to meet the neighbors and ask permission.
If it’s a building with a lot of neighbors that we are trying to photograph, we have to pick a date that works for everybody. That can be crazy in cities where people are very busy like New York, Paris, or Rome.
Once we pick a date, I come to the apartment where I am photographing and set up the camera pointing toward the opposing building. Then, I go to the opposing building and set up strobe lights that fire when I take the picture. I go back to the other side and start a group call with everybody participating and we all collaborate to make the picture.
How have your photographs altered your perception of neighbors and urban relationships?
What I realize about being a neighbor is we all yearn for connection. Nothing is more fascinating than imagining the life across the way. In a world filled with loneliness, the window can be a salve.
The contrast between exterior architecture and interior apartments is a core theme within your work. What compels you about it?
I feel like the architecture sets the stage for the drama in our lives. Each building seems to allow a different drama to unfold, and the architecture is like the set of a play or a film.
How have these urban photographs evolved throughout your career?
My work has gotten much more operatic in scale. I photograph many neighbors simultaneously. It has also gotten broader in locations, since I photograph all over the world. Recently, I have begun to collect audio stories of what people imagine about their neighbors.
What do you hope people will take away from your art?
I hope in this time where we seem quite divided my work can connect people. If you imagine the lives of your neighbors when you look in the windows of my photographs, I think you will realize we have more that connects us than separates us.
Exhibition Information:
Gail Albert Halaban
Out My Window
February 15–April 26, 2025
Galerie XII
2525 Michigan Ave Suite B2, Santa Monica, California, USA
Gail Albert Halaban: Website | Instagram
My Modern Met granted permission to feature photos by Gail Albert Halaban.
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