Dek Unu Magazine - Sonia Goydenko

Born in Ukraine, but now a transplanted New Yorker, street photographer Sonia Goydenko travels "The City," searching the crowd for faces - indrawn, alone, distant. Her people are present in the physical sense, but often disconnected from reality. Visibly tired of the hustle and bustle of urban life, they retreat to empty subway cars and darkened street corners to have a moment to themselves. Some are compressed by the spaces they are in and by the strangers who surround them. Others appear miniscule or lifeless, as if part of a movie backdrop. Sonia's degree is in Psychology and the title of her portfolio, "Fragments of Consciousness," is a scientific term-of-art, describing that feeling of being detached from reality or not being "grounded" in one's usual sense of self. In that sense, her streets are everyone's streets and the city is everywhere.