City & Town
OLD COLOR REVEALED -- New York City (October 11, 2025) -- This old wall has hosted many street art murals at 8th Avenue and 13th Street in New York, and now is in the midst of another transformation. (The wall, part of a 19th century building, is at the edge of the Mobil Mart which is the last gas station in lower Manhattan and the home of a gourmet burger eatery called the Smacking Burger.)
COLORS AND GEOMETRY OF OLD TOWN - Porto, Portugal (June 21, 2025) (Award Winner Architecture, PhIG 2025 Photography Annual Show) A labyrinth of narrow cobbled streets and terraced houses climbs the steep hillside of the medieval Ribeira (Riverside) neighborhood of Porto, Portugal – a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The colors of even the humblest architecture in the district can be strikingly vibrant, and, from certain vantage points, the terracotta rooftops make geometric figures receding into this unique urban landscape.
VISITOR TO THE CHAPEL OF SOULS -- Porto, Portugal (June 21, 2025) -- A young woman finds an improvised seat on a small projecting stone outside the Chapel of Souls in Porto, Portugal. Sitting next to an alleyway under construction, she looks past the remarkable blue-and-white ceramic tiles that cover the exterior walls.
VISITORS TO THE TERRARIUM -- New York City, New York (January 27, 2024) -- Visitors on the balcony of the Whitney Museum are reflected in a sculpture on the High Line in NYC. (The sculpture is called "On Growth," and includes a fern inside dichroic glass by Kapwani Kiwanga.) This picture won a First Place Award in the "Open" category of the 2024 Annual Show of the NAA Photography Interest Group. The Juror said: "I can see this work being used with students and I can imagine the conversations that can be had."
KICKPLATE REFLECTIONS -- Newburyport, Massachusetts (September 26, 2024) -- A tarnished kickplate at the base of a Talbot's store’s red door reflects four begonia blossoms from a nearby planter. A utilitarian object suddenly seems to echo Claude Monet’s Water Lilies.
WE SEE OURSELVES IN NATURE -- Kew Gardens, London, England (July 8, 2024) -- The edge of one reality seems to intersect with another in this picture. A mirrored sculpture by Marc Quinn in the shape of a dried pressed plant specimen – one of 7 million in the global plant archive of London’s Kew Gardens – reflects a school group walking by.
SPRAY THE YELLOW BACKPACK - Montreal, Canada (8-9-2024) - A looming Graffiti Grandma (mural by Project TXNYA) sprays a plume of yellow paint in Montreal -- it looks like she successfully tagged the bright yellow backpack of a passing bicyclist.
URBAN CLIFF - Mobile, Alabama (September 13, 2024)
BRIDGE STREET BRIDGE - Manchester, New Hampshire (April 4, 2025) Supported by a colorful giant, the superstructure of the “Bridge Street Bridge” is illuminated by late day sunshine, and the parallel spans frame a wedge of blue sky high above the river in Manchester, NH.
ILLUMINATED -- New York, NY (March 14, 2026) -- This UPS shipping facility is lit up by the morning sun reflecting off windows of a Google office building across the street, illuminating it with short-lived vertical bars of glowing light. The vivid murals on the loading dock doors were painted by students and the nonprofit Publicolor to transform the streetscape in the Hudson Square neighborhood of New York City.
FLAMING FOLIAGE IN JAPAN -- Yabuhara, Japan (November 4, 2023) -- Framed by the colors and textures of a small home located on the way to a mountain pass in Japan, a shrub bursts bright with red foliage in the fall.
THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS -- Newburyport, Massachusetts (January 3, 2024) -- The familiar New England landscape of trees, sky, brick and a church steeple bend and distort in the reflection of a police vehicle as 2024 begins. This picture won an Honorable Mention Award at the 2024 NAA Winter Juried Show.
COLOR CONVERGENCE - Newburyport, Massachusetts (October 26, 2024)
FEET FRAMED BY CURVED STEEL - New York City, New York (April 17, 2016)
GREAT DESIRE -- Brighton, England (July 5, 2024) -- A municipal worker, cleaning graffiti on a rainy morning, walks along the lightly dilapidated seaside promenade of Brighton, England.
WORN TO SHREDS - Haverhill, Massachusetts (November 22, 2024)
HOME IN WINTER - West Newbury, Massachusetts (January 21, 2024)
KISS BENEATH A PLASTIC AVALANCHE - Ottawa, Canada (August 22, 2016) - A couple shares a kiss at a cafe table, ignoring the vibrant mountain of plastic that appears to be exploding above them. (The plastic is a sculpture by artist Jose Luis Torres, intended to speak to the enormous amount of disposable plastic that has been extruded into the world.)
PARASOLS ON PONTOCHO STREET -- Kyoto, Japan (November 10, 2023) -- Traditional paper umbrellas are iconic elements in Japanese art and culture, and are often colored red to protect against evil spirits. But clear plastic umbrellas are a far more common sight in modern Japan.
BLUE TILES, SKY TO SEA - Karato, Teshima Island, Japan (11/9/2023) Traditional Japanese roof tiles made of clay called kawara have been a part of Japan’s visual landscape for 1,400 years and have a high cultural importance. More durable than contemporary asphalt shingles, they are highly functional and beautiful and graceful. Kawara are usually colored red or gray, but occasionally they are glazed a beautiful cerulean blue. This house is on a narrow street in the small fishing village of Karato Port on Teshima Island in Japan. The thicket of overhead electric lines, also a common feature in today’s Japan, draws the eye down to the blue Seto Inland Sea.
TENEMENTS AND TOWERS -- New York, NY (March 14, 2026) -- Old tenements lining Henry Street in NYC's Chinatown and the Lower East Side have been joined by a new residential tower looming above. The stepped balconies of the new tower resonate with the old metal fire escape stairs angling down the front of the tenements.