“As I continued watching, I wondered if the smiles I saw through that lens of mine told the real story of their lives. Maybe those smiles were a cover for something else, just like the way of dressing sometimes covers those beautiful smiles and faces in their own countries,” says Anja. “In Europe, we often say we are not used to these covers of fabric. We like to see a person’s whole face. But I wondered if we really always see a person’s true face or is what we see not often a cover, too?”

“Every movie, book or song tells a story. They all have a beginning and an end. When a song ends, the story seems over. When the killer is found at the end of that thriller, the movie ends. When the couple is finally together and they kiss on the last page of that romance novel, the book ends,” says OMer Anja. “But in life, the end of a story is never the end of it. It always goes on. When that book or movie is over, time seems to freeze and life as we know it seems to stay exactly the same.”

“I was recently travelling by train through two countries, which meant a whole day of sitting on trains,” OMer Anja said. “There were many people coming and going on these trains, many people with whom you share space for a few minutes or hours, who you smile at or have some other kind of common courtesy interactions. But rarely do you talk more to the strangers around you, at least not in Europe.”