
AMSTERDAM
A selection of my favourite photographs taken while I was in Amsterdam searching for a Moment of Exchange...

In search of my moment of exchange I was constantly aware during the majority of the trip. However, my moment came totally unexpected, which made it all the more interesting, and I hadn't actually realised it was an exchange until a while after. As I went to cross the road an older lady started to raise her voice at me in Dutch, which was a problem. I mentioned that I was English but she continued to talk to me in Dutch. It took me a while but I realised the man to cross the road was red and assumed that she was telling me off for crossing at the wrong time. I then ended up standing there for what felt like an eternity, but was probably only 3 minutes, with not a single car or bike going past. Eventually the light went green and I crossed but I thought about it for a while afterwards and it was then that I realised that it had been an exchange, however brief.
I decided to draw this moment as it made me think about why she had chosen me to point out, whilst I had been watching people cross the road whenever all day. Did she notice that I was foreign, or was it because I was young? This is what I tried to represent in the diagram. the thought process at the time, all jumbled and confused, as I tried to work out why she was talking to me. And then the process of running it through my head as I walked away, and for a few hours to follow.