There is something devious about looking into someone else's garden. People half-hide them behind hedges and fences but leave just enough of a gap that you can still see in. A garden like this one says a lot about whoever owns it.

I never found out who lived here. My wife's grandparents were on the other side of the street, so I passed this house often. I never once saw anyone using the garden. The statues, the white arbor, the covered terrace with its curtains, all of it perfectly maintained and perfectly empty.

It is like that in a lot of these small German towns. The old people sit inside. The streets are quiet enough that you could believe no one lives there at all. But the lawns are cut and the paint is fresh. And knowing the kind of people who live in houses like these, I know that even if they could afford help, they would never let someone else touch their things.

I was framing the shot through the hedge with my Leica when a neighbor came out and asked me what I was doing. Old people in towns like this always get nervous when someone stops and looks.