Many thanks to Aminus3 Photography for the photo prompt: Discover.

Köln surprised me. Not because of its cathedral, or its history, or the crowds.

It surprised me because I looked into a shop window and found myself standing inside someone else’s image.

This isn’t Photoshop or multiple exposure. It’s a simple reflection in glass. The poster was already there. I just waited until my reflection became part of it.

Suddenly Köln wasn’t just a city I was visiting.

It was a place that reminded me what photography can do when we stop looking through a window and start looking at one.

Sometimes discovering a place has less to do with where you are than with noticing what two unrelated things become when they meet for a fraction of a second.

Köln blew my mind.

Not because of what I found there. But because of what it taught me to see.