The Last Night

This photograph was created in 2010 from the Sheraton Hotel in Quito, Ecuador.

I was there in my role as a Latin American sales manager, visiting customers in the wireless telecommunications industry.

Walking out of the elevator on my final evening, I turned to my right and found the only elevated view I had access to during the trip.

The sun had just settled.

Enough light remained behind the mountains to reveal their outline beneath the gathering clouds.

The city lights were beginning to glow, and the mall below added another visual layer.

The bars of the hotel window framed the entire scene.

Throughout my years of travel, I noticed that the view on the final evening often remained with me the longest.

Looking back, I realize I was not photographing Quito.

I was photographing the last gift the city gave me before I left.

Business travel is often remembered through meetings and schedules.

The Last Night preserves the quieter journey unfolding beside the professional one.

The hotel window becomes both viewpoint and boundary, allowing the city to reveal itself at the precise moment when departure gives the view greater emotional weight.

Created during a business trip to Quito in 2010, this photograph resulted from an unexpected encounter with a hotel window after leaving the elevator.

The height, timing, weather, remaining daylight, city lights, mountains, and window frame aligned briefly.

The artist had no access to another building offering this perspective.

The convergence felt less like a planned composition than a final gift from the city.

Every city reveals itself differently.

Some introduce themselves on the first day.

Others wait until the last.

We often believe we choose the places we remember.

Sometimes they choose the moment in which they wish to be remembered.

Perhaps that is why certain photographs feel less like accidents and more like gifts.

Preserved as the twenty-eighth accessioned photograph in the Francisco Colón Studio Photography Wing, The Last Night expands the Cities collection through the emotional geography of departure and the rituals of professional travel.