Danish photographer and Office co-founder Jesper D. Lund has released CANAL, his first self-published photobook, gathering a personal archive of images made around New York’s Canal Street between 2016 and 2022. Published in 2026, the 64-page volume brings together around 40 photographs with an original poem by New York-based painter Landon Metz.
A camera kept close to the everyday
The photographs began almost by chance, captured during Lund’s breaks from the Office magazine studio on Canal Street. His camera accompanied everyday walks for coffee, lunch or a breath of air, quietly recording whatever crossed his path. Years later, after the magazine had left the neighbourhood, Lund returned to the archive, editing the images into a carefully paced sequence.
The resulting book traces a neighbourhood in perpetual motion without chasing its spectacle. Lund’s street photography lingers on fleeting encounters, subdued street scenes and the overlooked details of urban life. His restrained, attentive visual language leaves space for ambiguity, atmosphere and the poetry of the ordinary.
Seven years in passing
Spanning six years of photographs, CANAL feels less like a conventional document than a visual diary of downtown New York. Its pages carry a constant sense of movement, punctuated by moments of stillness: figures passing through the frame, small gestures caught mid-action, familiar streets gradually becoming markers of time. Metz’s accompanying poem extends the photographs beyond their immediate surroundings, reflecting on the city that shaped Lund’s practice and the early years of Office magazine.
Images courtesy of JESPER D. LUND
