Summer doesn’t belong to any one city. It shows up in the same loosened postures wherever it lands—shoulders down, sleeves rolled, plans made loose and casual. In a new photo essay, JM Giordano tracks that feeling across five cities that otherwise share little: Baltimore, New York, Amsterdam, Utrecht, and Doorn. Different languages, different skylines—but the same instinct once the temperature climbs to get outside, find other people, and stay a while.
Giordano is shooting exclusively on film, and that choice shapes what these photographs are. There’s no burst mode, no scrolling through hundreds of frames to find the one that works. Each shot is unique and singular. Giordano has to watch a scene build, trust his read of a moment before it happens, and commit. That patience suits the subject: a stoop filling with neighbors, a canal-side bench claimed for an afternoon, a plaza in Utrecht filling the way a Baltimore block fills, informally, by word of mouth. The camera isn’t capturing summer; it’s immersed in it.
Across four countries, the same logic repeats: doors propped open, chairs dragged outside, a city’s private life spilling into its public one for a few months. Different places, same gesture.
Below, the photographs.
