Between the Curtains, Rio

I made it a point to get up early that morning.

I had slept with the curtains partially closed, much as they appear in the photograph, and with the balcony door open.

That was something I often did while staying at the Sheraton in Rio.

The open door allowed the air and sound of the ocean to enter the room. Before I went to sleep, I already knew that I wanted to be awake when the first light appeared over the Atlantic.

By my recollection, this was most likely my third visit to Rio de Janeiro. My visits had begun in October 2002, and by then the city was already becoming more than another destination.

That morning, however, I was not thinking about business, schedules, walking through the city, or where I might go later.

I was waiting for the light.

When it arrived, it appeared between the curtains and stretched across the water. The surrounding panels caught portions of the sky and repeated them as subdued reflections.

The curtains kept most of the room in darkness, allowing the sunrise to become the center of everything.

I had forced myself to wake early specifically to experience that moment.

I was not disappointed.

Between the Curtains, Rio transforms a hotel room into an intimate observational space.

The Atlantic sunrise is not presented as an unrestricted landscape. It is seen through a narrow opening created by dark curtains and vertical architectural divisions.

These elements form a natural frame within the photograph.

The central opening reveals the horizon, sunrise, and a trail of reflected light across the water. On either side, darker panels repeat fragments of the sky and ocean, creating a visual movement between direct observation and reflection.

The curtains occupy much of the composition, but they do not function merely as foreground obstructions. Their darkness establishes the privacy of the room and intensifies the luminosity beyond it.

The photograph therefore exists between two environments.

One is enclosed, private, and still.

The other is open, illuminated, and seemingly without limit.

The photographer's decision to awaken early gives the image an additional dimension. This was not a sunrise encountered accidentally. It was anticipated, waited for, and consciously experienced.

That intention changes the photograph from a scenic hotel view into a record of personal ritual and attention.

Some experiences ask us to make an effort before they reveal themselves.

We wake before we ordinarily would.

We leave the door open.

We listen to the ocean while the room remains dark.

Then we wait.

The curtains in this photograph do not completely reveal the world outside. They allow only enough of it to enter.

Perhaps that is why the memory remains so clear.

The sunrise did not fill the entire room.

It arrived through a narrow opening and drew a line of light across the water.

For a few minutes, there was no city to navigate and nowhere else to be.

There was only the room, the open balcony door, the sound of the Atlantic, and the light arriving over Rio.

I had awakened specifically to witness it.

And I was not disappointed.

Preserved as the eighty-second accessioned photograph in the Francisco Colón Studio Photography Wing, Between the Curtains, Rio joins the Reflections collection as a study of anticipation, solitude, memory, interior space, and the arrival of morning.

The photograph was made from the Sheraton Hotel in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, most likely during January 2003.

Artist provenance identifies the occasion as probably the photographer's third visit to Rio de Janeiro, following visits that began in October 2002.

The camera's embedded metadata records January 1, 2003, at 7:00:16 AM. The photographer believes the month and year are likely accurate but does not believe January 1 represents the actual day of capture. The embedded date may reflect a partially configured or default camera calendar.

Accordingly, the Studio recognizes January 2003 as the probable capture period while preserving the exact day as unverified.

The image was deliberately created after the photographer awakened early to experience the Atlantic sunrise. The balcony door had been left open overnight, and the curtains remained partially closed in a position characteristic of how the artist commonly slept during his stays at the hotel.

The curtains, window divisions, and reflective panels were retained as essential compositional elements. They establish the relationship between the private darkness of the hotel room and the open light of the ocean beyond it.

During the 2026 restoration, highlight intensity around the sun and illuminated clouds was reduced while color and tonal separation within the sky were recovered where the source file allowed.

Shadow detail was treated conservatively so that the curtains would continue to function as dark framing elements. Contrast, clarity, and atmospheric definition were refined without attempting to make the interior fully visible.

The lower balcony railing was removed through cropping to strengthen the vertical framing and concentrate attention on the relationship between the curtains, sunrise, and water.

No replacement sky or generative reconstruction was introduced. The photograph remains a restored interpretation of the original camera image.