Rafique's Philadelphia Melancholy
Initially I thought the skyline and buildings are in stark contrast to the poverty and desperation that's visible everywhere. But on second look, it seems the impoverished streets have subsumed the buildings and buildings, no matter how elegant one wants to convince themselves to believe are, fail to shrug it off and instead project it's destitute state even more. It comes across as a place whose legacy is now only on paper, like someone reaching the end of their life, something whose glory can only be referenced in past tense, an obituary on a mammoth scale, a soul mercilessly crushed by the hammer of time never ever to be revived again. Just like people avoid eye contact with the homeless and drug addicts that roam its streets, a homeless who everyone sees but no one acknowledges, the city itself is a personification of it - everyone senses the ruins, everyone smells the pungent air, no one wants to acknowledge it. It's symbolic of someone devoid of heart beat or soul - t