*Top,* Ruth Orkin at work, leaning out the window of her Central Park West apartment, 1978; *above, Sunlit Streets, NYC, 1977.*

*Top,* *Philharmonic Concert, NYC, 1979;* *above,* *Start of First NYC Marathon, 1970.*

*Top,* *Fireworks on New Years Eve, NYC, 1978;* *above,* *Mist over Sheep Meadow, NYC, 1971.*

*Top,* *Tavern Lights, NYC, 1976;* *above,* *White Feathery Trees, NYC, 1981.*

*Top,* *All Right with the World, NYC, 1981;* *above,* *Pink Sky, 1981.*

*View from West 88th Street, NYC, 1952.*

*Top,* *Superman in Macys Parade, NYC, 1976;* *above,* *Moon over Fifth Avenue, NYC, 1980.*

The Woman in the Window

The American photographer Ruth Orkin did her best work without ever leaving the house

By Sam Kashner

My window shows the travelling clouds,
Leaves spent, new seasons, alter’d sky,
The making and the melting crowds:
The whole world passes; I stand by.
—Gerard Manley Hopkins

Mostly she waited. Waited “for the clouds to become the right shape,” for a shadow or a ray of light, sometimes rising before dawn to shoot a sunrise that “I must have sensed in my sleep.”