14-FEB-2013
Silence, Little Five Points, Atlanta, Georgia, 2013
This wall mural is richly incongruous. The huge face is both surrounded and invaded by swirling kinetic splashes of color, expressing great turmoil and energy. Yet the face remains utterly impassive, as if it is determined to keep absolutely silent. I also liked the way the artist integrates the brick outcropping at right into the lip area, as if to stress the fact that his lips remains sealed, despite the onslaught of activity around and even within the face. Sometimes a wall can speak of silence. And this is just such a case.
14-FEB-2013
Night Train, Little Five Points, Atlanta, Georgia, 2013
The railroad tracks in this scene seem to spring directly from the painted yellow parking lot lines just below this mural. A train rushes through the night, its approach heralded by what seem to be stylized seagulls fluttering just ahead of it. A swirling moon echoes the three orbs of light that illuminate the flock of birds. I particularly liked the almost seamless transition between the parking lot and the bottom of the mural – it gives us the feeling that the train is about to make a hard left turn, making fantasy into reality.
16-AUG-2012
Big wall, big film, Venice Beach, California, 2012
“A Touch of Evil,” a 1958 movie directed by Orson Welles, and starring Charlton Heston and Janet Leigh, was set in a fictional town on the US-Mexico border, but much of it was shot on location in Venice Beach, California. Today, the site of the location shoot is a parking lot. I was delighted to find that the film is commemorated there with a huge black and white mural covering almost the entire wall of a building adjoining that parking lot. The mural is titled “Touch of Venice” but it is far more than just a touch. It shows Venice Beach as it looked at night in 1958, featuring illuminated arcades that once lined its main street for many blocks. (54 years later, only fragments of the arcades remain, along with the sign hanging over the street.) The mural is so large that the figures of Heston and Leigh stand at least a full story high. Using a wideangle lens, I draw scale comparisons between the cars in the mural and the actual cars in the parking lot. Three of the six cars in the parking lot at the time I made this picture happen to be white, which tie in nicely with the black and white mural. The film itself was shot entirely in black and white. The only color in the image is a red stripe on the hood of the white car at far left, the blue car with red tail lights in the center, the car draped in a beige protective cover (to protect it from the salty mist at night), and the red tail lights in the gray car at far right.
16-AUG-2012
Remembrance, Venice Beach, California, 2012
A three story high mural honoring the memory of a local singer cleverly works its way down the side of an apartment building in Venice Beach. Most of the mural is out of my frame – I abstract it by incongruously including just the singer’s legs as they flow out of the vines that cover the entrance to the adjoining building. A rising foot acts as the pivot for the entire mural – it seems to rise from a cluster of ornamental grasses. The scale contrast is also incongruous, while the colors of the blouse and trousers work well with the square blue-gray tiles of the adjoining entrance walk.
22-SEP-2011
Mural, Sayausi, Ecuador, 2011
This mural, running along one of Sayausi’s main streets, is rooted in primary colors, with blue predominating. I wanted to match its colors to the clothing of a passing pedestrian, and this person, wearing an Ecuadorian straw hat and a blue jacket fit my needs perfectly. The mural speaks of nature, with its starry night sky, fields of grain, and outsized insects and blossoms. It stands in stark juxtaposition to the concrete sidewalk and street that forms its base.
10-SEP-2011
The long steps, Cuenca, Ecuador, 2011
Cuenca’s historic old city stands on a bluff, high over the Tomebamba River. Several huge staircases join the river with the old town, and most of those steps are garnished with contemporary examples of public art. In this case, it is a mural expressing a poetic pause in the middle of a city of concrete and rubber. The stylized faces reminded me of a Picasso sketch – I thought that including the steps in the foreground, diminishing in width as they flowed towards the mural, would suggest the cubistic era in which he worked.
23-SEP-2011
Censorship, Cuenca, Ecuador, 2011
The underlying texture of this graffiti is made up of newspaper articles. Stenciled upon them is an expressive figure, eloquently silenced by swaths of underlying concrete. The news has been stripped away from the mouth area, across the neck, and even the forearm. The hand is gone, and in its place seems to be a flickering flame. Ecuador has been having censorship issues, so it did not surprise me to find such a plea pasted upon a wall in Cuenca’s old city.
19-DEC-2010
Humanization, Buzios, Brazil, 2010
A street artist has humanized the walls of a drab utility box, transforming it into a whimsical human cartoon. I caught the light at just the right time of day – early morning. The low angle of the light softly sculpts the painted panels with shadow, making the cartoon figure seem as if it is just waking up.
01-JAN-2011
Einstein, St. Barts, French West Indies, 2011
A temporary wall in downtown Gustavia displays a likeness of the man who authored the theory of relativity holding a sign telling us that love, rather than science, is the ultimate answer. I waited for a string of cruise ship passengers to approach the sign and made this image in mid stride. They seem bent on shopping in St. Barts, even though most of the shops were closed, ignoring the sentiment painted on the wall before them.
10-SEP-2010
Proud paint, Mission Beach, San Diego, California, 2010
An alley wall offers a dual dose of patriotic symbolism. The rich colors seems to shout their proud sentiments from a heavily textured surface. This wall affirms the local support of political policies involved in dual complex and devastating wars that few passersby comprehend.
20-MAY-2010
Street art, Boise, Idaho, 2010
A street artist left this interpretation of the Potato as King of Idaho, on a Boise alley wall. I move in on the work, abstracting it to stress the incongruous fractures dividing it down the middle. It seems to imply that this multi billion-dollar industry is, like many other farming enterprises, now facing difficult times.
21-MAY-2010
Breakfast with the Dalai Lama, Stanley, Idaho, 2010
We were having breakfast at a coffee house in the tiny town of Stanley. At the next table, a reunion of some kind was in progress. I photographed them because a portrait of the Dalai Lama incongruously looks down on them from the wall overhead, apparently adding his blessing to the get-together. (As one of my travel companions notes in her comment below, the Dalai Lama apparently visited the Stanley area, and thus this well known portrait hangs on the wall of the town's coffee house.)
23-MAY-2010
Caboose, Nevada City, Montana, 2010
The Great Northern Railway is no more. Yet its flaking emblem still clings to the side wall of a decaying caboose near the ghost town of Nevada City. The trademark is cut asunder down the middle, just as the Great Northern itself, which merged with two other railroads to form the Burlington, Great Northern, and Santa Fe. I include a window off to the left, reflecting the clawed branches of nearby dead trees. It adds a ghostly context. Amazingly, the colors of the Great Northern are still vivid. The red and orange paint lingers, a reminder of the railroad’s best days.
21-NOV-2009
Happy Thanksgiving, The Westward Ho, Phoenix, Arizona, 2009
The once luxurious Westward Ho Hotel now provides low-income housing to seniors, many of them living alone. I often take my tutorial students to shoot here, because it offers so many contrasting visual elements. In this case, the wall of its elevator lobby is decorated with a cheerful salute to the Thanksgiving holiday, yet it has been placed right next to a permanent sign designed to keep residents from “loitering.” The two signs clash within the frame of my image, which encloses them side by side above an empty wooden chair. The contrast between the signs is incongruous – the larger, more colorful Thanksgiving sign offers a pleasurable sentiment. The slightly askew “No Loitering” sign warns people not to stand or wait around the elevator lobby just to pass the time. The verb “loiter” also connotes improper or sinister motives, diluting much of the good will intended by the Thanksgiving salute. This wall speaks, but it seems to speak at cross-purposes.
14-NOV-2009
Petroglyphs, Newspaper Rock, Monticello, Utah, 2009
Over 2,000 years of man’s activities are recorded on this rock. Rather than try to embrace the entire rock, I concentrate here on only a few of the petroglyphs – those that are inscribed on the rock with the greatest sense of texture and flow. There is a strong diagonal thrust to this image, which animates the figures and makes them seem about to move.
13-NOV-2009
The chase, Moab, Utah, 2009
One of the most bizarre murals I have seen covers an entire side of the Poison Spider Bicycle Shop in downtown Moab. There is a fence between the wall and a gas station parking lot. This fence offers a layer of reality that brings the fantasy to life. A giant spider steps out from behind a curiously shaped rock and gives chase to four cyclists speeding away behind that fence. My image includes not only this wall that speaks, but the upper front section of the bike shop as well.
21-OCT-2009
Love letter, Bucharest, Romania, 2009
The wall itself is a study in decay, part of the crumbling core of Old Bucharest. Yet someone still loves the place, at least according to the torn poster. The strange figure in the cartoon has company as well, a disintegrating caricature with no arms, a soaring mustache, and a toothy grin. Seen together on a layered wall of decay, they make an incongruous set of local boosters.
21-SEP-2009
Underpass, Montreal, Canada, 2009
This underpass serves as a makeshift home for a number of homeless people in Montreal. They have left their marks on its walls – graffiti that expresses their sense of identity and purpose. Perhaps that purpose is just to get through another day – that may be why a white chalk line runs along the walls and through the arches. I used a 14mm wideangle lens to make this image, coming as close as I could to the arch, yet still including the litter on the ground and adding dimension by reaching through the arch into the next vault, where someone has left graffiti that itself is dimensional in form.
23-SEP-2009
Graffiti Alley, Toronto, Canada, 2009
Is graffiti art or defacement? It depends on its context. In Toronto, building owners along Queen Street welcome the city’s graffiti artists to paint their walls – at least those that face the alley in the rear. Graffiti Alley runs just south of Queen Street from Spadina to Portland – about a kilometer’s worth of real estate. Each summer for the last few years a group called “style in progress” has taken over the alley for 24 hours of legal painting. The result is spectacular, as this image implies. I thank pbase photographer Jude Marion, (judespics) who spent an afternoon shooting with me in Toronto, and took me to this place. She says it also has become a mecca for local photographers. I can see why.
16-MAY-2008
History in words, Angels Camp, California, 2008
Angels Camp is one of California’s most historic mining towns. It was at the heart of the Gold Rush, and it was here that Mark Twain first heard the story of the jumping frog that he would eventually write about. His words would make the town world famous. I found other words here – words lathered on a brick wall in an alley. There are layer upon layer of signs here, reaching from today, back into the long history of this colorful place. And so I made this richly colored image, filled with words and partial words and fragments of words that together create a historical quilt that can carry us back to other days and other times.
03-APR-2008
Bound for school, Aleppy, India, 2008
A pair of Islamic boys head for school in Aleppy, the last stop on our cruise through Kerala’s tropical backwaters. Kerala has the second highest literacy rate (90%) among India’s states. The walls of Kerala and much of India are covered in posters, past and present. Those with heads on them are almost always from past elections. These boys may take no notice of them, but these walls speak of a society where communication is open and reading is taken for granted.
18-DEC-2007
Drips and masks, Hanoi, Vietnam, 2007
I thought the effect of the dripping paint and masked figure worked well together. The drips come from a hastily stenciled phone number for the contractor who once made repairs to this Hanoi building. The mask is intended to combat the air pollution that plagues all of Vietnam's cities. These stenciled numbers are seen all over Asia – it is as if the walls themselves are letting us know who last came to fix them.
08-NOV-2007
White House Ruin, Canyon de Chelly, Arizona, 2007
This ruin, built by ancient Puebloan people within a cave on the canyon wall, is over 1,000 years old. If you view this image at full size, you can read some “recent” graffiti left on its white plastered wall, some of it dating back more than 130 years. This image casts its spell only when we notice those carvings. Casual tourists did not leave these names and dates. Just getting to this place must have been an accomplishment. Knowing this, the old graffiti becomes a symbol of endurance rather than vandalism. Today, this cliff house is off-limits. We can look, but not touch. We are left to live the story of this place through the autographs of its long dead visitors.
08-JUL-2007
Rusty fire escape, Denver, Colorado, 2007
Graffiti artists have used this fire escape as their road to expression. Their embellished logos and pleas to be heard cover the lower story of this abandoned apartment house but are limited to the areas around the rusty fire escape as it climbs to the third story. The rusted metal and boarded windows tell us that this building is no longer being maintained. It has become a community bulletin board that communicates various identities in vividly expansive explosions of paint. The fire escape was once intended to save lives. Today, it has become a sounding board.
08-JUL-2007
Mexican restaurant, Denver, Colorado, 2007
This mural, painted on the outside of a colorfully painted Mexican restaurant, is a fantasy speaking of an idyllic culture and place. An Aztec altarpiece, a dancer in flowing pink dress, the inevitable guitar player wearing a sombrero, and even an Aztec temple, lure prospective diners to the pleasures of a Mexican dinner. The reality, however, is expressed in the bike rack just below it. I made this image early on a Sunday morning, and its hard-pressed workers arrive by bicycle, not by car. Each bike is shackled to steel bars embedded in concrete.
08-JUL-2007
Alley, Denver, Colorado, 2007
This neighborhood has deteriorated, its alleys filled with potholes and lined with graffiti. I built this image around a graphic shout from a wall that is repeated in the puddles below it. The wall is layered in graffiti, while the puddles below it are deeply shadowed, abstracting the reflections within them, and lowering the bold shout to a distressed murmur. Nobody appears to be looking or listening. The urban decay continues.
07-JUL-2007
Requiem, Denver, Colorado, 2007
A huge photograph of an American Indian chief looms over the Denver Cultural Center.
It is several stories high, and can be seen at a great distance. It is intended to draw visitors to a local museum, yet to me it speaks more forcefully as a requiem – a token of remembrance for culture that has virtually been exterminated. I framed the photograph of this long dead chief in shadowy leaves -- an incongruous symbol of hope and life.
24-FEB-2007
Visitors Center, Manzanar National Historic Site, California, 2007
In 1942, the great documentary photographer Dorthea Lange made an image of a tattered flag flying over the relocation center were 11,000 Japanese-Americans were forcibly interned during World War II. Today, that image has been made into an enormous mural, and it bears the names of all of those who suffered here. It stands in the great hall of the US National Park Service's Visitor Center. I moved in to remove other exhibits from the fame, used a camera with a 28mm wideangle lens to embrace as much of the display as I could. Since the photomural and names are black and white, I converted the image itself to black and white as well, a medium that offers a good sense of the era. It is a wall that speaks volumes about an embarrassing chapter in American history.
19-FEB-2007
Abandoned gas station, Death Valley Junction, California, 2007
This faded sign is a reminder of DeathValley’s isolation. I felt the wear and tear on the sign tells a story about the wear and tear of the place. I include the uneven edge of the wall holding the message as context. The colors also tell a story – Death Valley is a uniquely American place. There is nothing quite like it anywhere in the world. The sign is painted in red and blue on a white background – the national colors.
24-DEC-2006
Hotel lobby, Marrakesh, Morocco, 2006
Visitors to Marrakesh relax in a hotel lobby after a day of shopping. I made this image because of the mural on the wall behind them. Incongruously, they take no notice of the mural, but we do – it is surreal, an artist’s interpretation of the gardens of Old Marrakesh. It speaks of tradition, elegance and the future – its trees are tiny, dwarfed by the huge columns that surround them and its checkerboard floor draws the eye through them.
23-SEP-2006
Faded sign, Green River, Utah, 2006
Old signs that tenaciously cling to the bricks and boards of abandoned buildings make wonderful subjects. This sign was on the side of a boarded up building on a Green River side street. I abstract the sign, asking the viewer to read the fragments and come to their own conclusions about what was once going on here. Actually the sign that speaks to us here represents the hard playing, hard drinking, and hard smoking male of the early 20th century. This was a billiard parlor, and it offered all that came along with a good game of pool. The sign has turned a coppery color, and I include four of the metal stars inserted in the bricks to keep the wall intact. They have obviously done their job.
28-SEP-2006
Main Street, Gardiner, Montana, 2006
Gardiner sits on the Wyoming/Montana border and acts as the Northern gateway to Yellowstone National Park. Its main street offers visitors provisions, tours, rafting and fishing trips, horseback rides and gifts of all kinds. The young man who carries his tub of laundry past these screaming walls seems oblivious to all of it. I like the two flags that I was able to work into the composition at opposite ends of the diagonal that runs through the image. One says its store is “open” and the other is the American flag. Both of them are red, white and blue, and every sign in the picture uses at least one of those colors in its message.
19-SEP-2006
Photo Shop, Kanab, Utah, 2006
The exterior wall of what once was the Kanab Hotel speaks to every photographer. It embraces, accidentally or on purpose, the entire history of the medium. At left, a window ad for a portrait studio portrays the process as it was done in the 19th century. Meanwhile, the sign at right signals the presence of a Photo Shop. Needless to say, most 21st century photographers would read that as Photoshop.
25-SEP-2006
Landmark, Logan, Utah, 2006
One of the most photographed barns in Utah is just outside of Logan. It still bears an ad for a product that saw its best days about 100 years ago. I enjoyed linking the incongruity of the message to the context of landscape photography. I linked the shape of peaked roof of the barn to the rhythmic lines of the repeating depressions on the slopes just behind and to the right. I also liked the bright red frame of the shed next door – symbolizing two eras of farming. In other words, I made this image as I would make a serious landscape photograph. Yet the words on the wall have nothing at all to do with landscape photography, and thus become incongruous and even more amusing.
07-AUG-2006
Poster wall, Soho, New York City, 2006
Soho is an eclectic recycled New York neighborhood. (Its name is an acronym for “SOuth of HOuston Street.”) It was formerly known as “Hells Hundred Acres” – a warren of early 20th Century sweatshops. It was gentrified in the 60s and 70s and today is known for its shops, galleries, antiques, and lofts that sell for millions. Not to mention entertainment. The walls of its buildings are plastered with posters advertising pleasures that range from listening to music to watching murder. It is appropriate that this pair of young wall readers are dressed largely in black – they seem to blend in to the posters and become absorbed by them visually as they are verbally. I compose this image as a series of layers, starting with a No Parking sign in the foreground with a pair of bikes locked to it, as my anchor. The pair of wall readers in the second layer echoes the pair of bikes in the first layer. The posters themselves make up the third layer – most of them requiring a context that goes far beyond my own in order to understand what they are promoting. (As my own kids would be quick to tell me, “It’s not meant for you, dad.”) A fourth layer is a bit grittier – a huge graffiti signature is painted on the wall partially behind the posters. The fifth and final layer is the old brick wall itself – a surface supporting the posters, the graffiti, and even an air conditioner that has bars over it to keep it from being stolen.
10-JUL-2006
The Westerner, Winslow, Arizona, 2006
One of many budget motels that once lined US Route 66 in downtown Winslow, the Westerner has seen better days, but it still manages to hang on. I was stuck by the incongruous messages coming at me from its walls. Its marquee is in disarray – letters are missing and it makes little sense. Yet nobody has fixed it in years. What this hotel seems to be saying is that the guests who stay here don’t really need to read a marquee. They probably already know what it costs to stay there, and what the place offers them. Another message speaks of its very clean environment. The state of its cleanliness must be a relative term. The sign itself is rusting and the building that supports is in need of a paint job. The final incongruous touch that makes this wall speak so eloquently is the cowboy hat, complete with a drooping wire. The old west is no more. It is a fantasy, a place of dreams. I am not sure that this motel ever could have offered its visitors the authentic old west.
12-JUL-2006
The 50’s are closed, Seligman, Arizona, 2006
Even though the town was crowded with busloads of tourists from as far away as Japan, Seligman's "Return to the 50's" museum was closed the day we were there. One can only wonder if this place really exists or is, like so much of Seligman, a nostalgic fantasy. Although the museum itself was shut down, its façade offered a fascinating mélange of messages. The big red sign is designed very much in the graphic style of that era. It offers time travel, while the museum itself is downplayed, appearing as an after thought (along with the gift shop), in almost invisible brick red letters to the right of the door. We see two signs of closure, a random poster showing a large bottle of Coca Cola, and a smaller add for Power-Lube Motor Oil. And in very small white letters, as another afterthought, the important words “Route 66” appear. Experiencing the historic road would be the whole point of being in Seligman in the first place.
10-JUL-2006
Trading Dome, Meteor City, Arizona, 2006
Native American decorations and chunks of petrified wood once drew tourists and their dollars to this old trading post along old Route 66. After being closed, it has reopened once again and sells souvenirs of the old west to tourists passing through. The iconic stereotypical profile painted on he side of the old dome speaks the loudest here. It portrays the Native American as a generic ceremonial figure. He looks like that because that is what tourists expect to see. A cliché. The image on this wall may raise questions in the minds of those who look at it. It is appropriate to decorate a commercial enterprise with an ethnic stereotype? Even if we are in what once was known as “Indian Country?” However we may choose to answer such questions, this wall is speaking to us.
10-JUL-2006
Tattoo Parlor, Winslow, Arizona, 2006
If ever a wall spoke of the business within, this one does. An artist has vividly tattooed the façade of the building itself, plunging an anchor into a red heart surmounted by the wings of an angel, and buried in billowing waves. Staffers taking a break are so used to seeing it, they take the incongruity of a tattooed building for granted. But I didn’t.
12-JUL-2006
Snow Cap Drive-in, Selgiman, Arizona, 2006
The Snow Cap is a Seligman institution. It is surrounded by outbuildings, decorated with paintings of snow cones, its windows filled with advertisements. This wall speaks of the implied pleasures of a Northern Arizona summer -- refreshment and entertainment. Yet the paint incongruously flakes on the window frame, and the faded people in the pictures are constrained under glass. This dream might be beyond our grasp.
10-MAY-2006
Warehouse, Phoenix, Arizona, 2006
I was drawn to this wall by a strikingly incongruous gouge symbolizing the life and times of the structure itself. This building dates back to the arrival of railroad service in Phoenix in the early 20th century. Time has opened a wound in it that reveals its history. The bricks may be part of its original wall. Succeeding layers of stucco suggest modernizations leading up to its present glowing green surface. This wall seems to be painfully speaking to us, telling us of its past. My image, made up primarily of the currently green surface, suggests that this building may be living on borrowed time as it approaches its second century of service.
10-MAY-2006
Dumpster, Phoenix, Arizona, 2006
The wall of a Phoenix warehouse is plastered with a grimly graphic set of posters warning of the dangers of Hepatitis C. It can be a horrific sickness, one that leads to disfigurement and worse. The wall of posters urges the viewer to fight back. I make this wall of posters speak more boldly by layering it with the forceful lines of a dumpster, symbolizing a wasted life. The dumpster’s bar thrusts deeply into the image, directly at the posters, while a vertical post connects the edge of the dumpster with the top of the image. I use the outer frame of the dumpster to create a diagonal which abstracts nearly a quarter of the poster wall, intensifying the power of those posters that remain visible.
15-MAR-2006
Billboard, Beijng, China, 2006
Passers by seem oblivious to the seductive blandishments of this billboard on Beijing's Wangfujing Avenue. The advertisement is for a club in a local hotel. I waited for someone to pass between the golden words and the red lips, and photographed about ten different pedestrians, among them this pair of men dressed identically. The face in the ad is abstract and incongruously large compared to the men walking towards it with unseeing eyes. Their minds are on other things.
26-OCT-2005
Listening, Plazuela del Baratillo, Guanajuato, Mexico, 2005
This woman was sitting on the steps of a house, listing to a sad song from a nearby guitar. I was attracted by the contrast created by the vivid color of the house and her monochromatic clothing. She occupies steps surrounded by walls, alone with her thoughts. With one hand held to her face, she limply holds a bag in the other. Her body language and expression may be relaxed, but the reddish walls that flank her seem heavy and unforgiving. None of us can know what may be on her mind, but those walls, working as context here, give us a melancholic view of this moment in time.
17-SEP-2005
Inscriptions, The Sacred Way, Ancient Delphi, Greece, 2005
This wall has long since fallen. It was part of the Sanctuary of Apollo, the center of the universe to the ancient Greeks, more than 2,500 years ago. It stood along side of the Sacred Way – the marble road leading to the dwelling place of the god Apollo – a street once lined with 3,000 statues and huge treasuries holding the offerings of the people who came to consult the god through his priestess, the Oracle of Delphi. The statues and most of the treasuries are gone now – all that’s left are ruins. Yet these ruined walls still speak to us, and we can listen to them. I singled out a single stone to express this idea. The afternoon sun was low in sky, illuminating the ancient Greek lettering on one side, and shadowing the mysterious, crudely scratched words on another, words that have stood the test of wind, rain and sun for twenty five centuries. I don’t know what the writing says – or if it was even part of a wall. It may have just as well been a column. Yet someone is still trying to say something to us after all of this time, and on this fall evening centuries later, their words can still be seen, revealed in light and hidden in shadow. I tilted the camera to allow the primary inscription to move along a diagonal plane, ending abruptly in the shadows where the other words seem to have left by succeeding generations. And that is the dynamic at work here – a war of words.
20-SEP-2005
Street Sign, Athens, Greece, 2005
The street signs in Athens hang on the sides of buildings and homes. They tell us where we are in both the Greek alphabet and the modern Greek language in the Roman alphabet. I devote much of the image to the wall bearing the sign, yet also include the tightly closed shutters set within the wall. The sign speaks – it tells us where we are. The shutters speak as well. They keep us from seeing what lies beyond the wall. Dappled light grazes both sign and shutter, cloaking both in gold and shadow.
06-SEP-2005
Restaurant, Samobor, Croatia, 2005
The small Zagreb suburb of Samobor has become of one the capitals of Croatian gastronomy. It has many restaurants in the center of town, specializing in everything from custard slices to its famous mustard and inevitable pizza. One of them advertises its specialties on a huge sign following the geometric flow of the restaurant building’s outside wall. Signs are often part of walls. They may blend with the wall or not. I found this sign to be an incongruous match – the quaint architecture of Samobor speaks of another time, when “grill” and “pizza” were not yet invented. The bold color of the sign is also incongruous. The walls of the surrounding houses are decidedly less vivid in color than the big sign, which makes it all the more out of place and time, but emphatically visible.
05-SEP-2005
Garage, Zagreb, Croatia, 2005
Two conflicting layers of expression are layered on top of this ornate metal garage door in downtown Zagreb. A larger-than-life graffiti signature embraces a small “no parking sign”. One is a command. The other is a defiant answer to that command, in eight feet high and 15 feet wide screaming red letters! (Inspired, no doubt, by the red “X” in the no parking sign.) I thought it an incongruous match-up, and eventually was able to ensnare a pair of passers-by within the huge logo. They are oblivious to the clash of ideas going on just behind them. Yet the red shoes worn by one of them extends the effect of the graffiti into the foreground, making her a graphic accomplice.
05-SEP-2005
Graffiti Wall, Zagreb, Croatia, 2005
This wall is virtually exploding with energetic graffiti. Its dominant colors are navy blue, white, and red. I saw a nun moving down the street, wearing a navy blue and white habit, and carrying a bright red bag – a perfect match. As she walked past me, she raised one hand to her collar, as if to adjust it, and in raising her arm, she fits perfectly within the design on the wall, bonding herself to the scene behind her. She expresses her vocation by the clothing she wears, just as those who have embellished this wall express themselves by the color and style of their signatures. The wall speaks, and inadvertently, the nun becomes a part of its expression.
12-SEP-2005
Franciscan Cloister, Dubrovnik, Croatia, 2005
The fantastical sculpted heads that look down on us from the columns of this 14th century Franciscan Monastery cloister express the essence of the medieval times in which they were created. While columns are not technically walls, their function is the same. They hold up a roof. These columns speak to us just as vividly as any wall could. This is fine art. At the time they were created, a sculptor wanted the “walls” of the cloister to speak to us. Seven hundred years later, they are still doing just that. To make them speak to us from within the frame of a photograph, I shot these heads through the palm fronds that fill the center of the cloister, which helps to animate them by comparing them to a living thing and adds the illusion of depth to the image. By stressing the evocative play of light and shadow on their faces, and the musty ancient colors, I try to make my viewers listen to what this long-dead sculptor is expressing to us.
04-SEP-2005
Gravestone, Mirogoj Cemetery, Zagreb, Croatia, 2005
A tombstone is, in effect, a miniature wall. It is part of a symbolic house, albeit with only one side. It not only marks a grave, but guards it, as well as telling us about those who lie within it. This one speaks eloquently through the interplay of a vintage photograph and the coloration of the granite that surrounds it. The portrait of the woman and daughter is poignant. Perhaps it’s because of their beauty, their costume, and the fact that they are not smiling. Death is not taken lightly. They are surrounded by sea of granite, set against a deep green background, and brushed gently by the shadow from an overhead tree. It is a wall that speaks of the short span of life and the unyielding nature of eternity, and if we listen hard enough, we might even be able to imagine their voices.
12-SEP-2005
Hand Railing, Rectors Palace, Dubrovnik, Croatia, 2005
The old walled city of Dubrovnik was once known as The Republic of Ragusa. It ranked among the world's great trading powers in the 15th Century, when it built this palace for its rulers. This staircase is one of its more memorable sights. I was astounded to see a huge hand coming out of the wall to support the hand railing I was using to haul myself upwards. It seems as if the strength of the past is sealed within that very wall, extending a small part of itself into the present to help us ascend the stairs to view the rooms from which this place was once governed. Talk about a wall that speaks! My image is very simple – built on a series of interlocking diagonals. The hand railing is the dominant diagonal, complemented by the diagonal flow of the steps and the rows of old stones in the wall. The incongruity of the exaggerated hand coming out of the wall is the force that makes the wall speak and the viewer listen. I originally posted this image in color, but later took a look at it in black and white. In monochrome, it becomes more surrealistic and timeless.
06-SEP-2005
Evidence of War, Karlovac, Croatia, 2005
Croatia has been at peace since the mid-90s. But if you look closely, you can often find the scars of Croatia's war with Serbia and Serb-led Yugoslavia. This building is in a rural area near Karlovac, which saw heavy fighting. The punctured and pitted walls come as a shock. The tree, an expression of life, contrasts strongly to the ruined building, which is utterly lifeless. The shadow of an upper stairway extends down into the scene, embracing the shell holes and calling attention to them. The shadow is an apparition – it makes the dead building, which is made of solid concrete, seem ephemeral. These are walls that have suffered, and by extension, they represent people and nations who have suffered as well.
03-SEP-2005
Savings Bank, Zagreb, Croatia, 2005
The paint on this building, one of the first banking institutions in Croatia’s capital city, is badly in need of repair. The peeling walls speak of neglect, probably due to lack of funding, yet two elements express ideas that contradict the decay. The ornate 19th century sculpture in the corner niche conveys a sense of faded grandeur – at one time, the bank must have been prosperous, and the sculpture was meant to prove it. The bright red flowers on the balcony tell us that even today, somebody cares enough about the image of the institution to grace its exterior with beauty.
06-SEP-2005
St. Michaels Church, Samobor, Croatia, 2005
Samobor is a little town 12 miles west of Zagreb. Its 13th century rural charms have always drawn visitors from the big city. A shallow trout stream winds its way through the town center, dominated by the vividly painted St. Michaels Church. With its yellow walls and red roofs, the keepers of this church are carrying on a Samobor tradition that goes back centuries. Yellow and red are both primary colors, and in this image, the early morning sun intensifies them, creating a warm and inviting feeling. I exposed the image to surround the church with large dark areas, which further emphasizes the warmth of its yellow walls. It’s the color that does the speaking here.
12-SEP-2005
Main Gate, Dubrovnik, Croatia, 2005
The fortified walls of Dubrovnik have protected the city for seven centuries, and while today they are charming relics of the past, their presence gives the old town its character and helps make it one of the most fascinating cities on the Adriatic. I used a lapse of human interaction to tell the story of the walls here. The guard never even looks back as a little boy skips past him and invades the town. The age and height and strength of these ancient walls – interlocking as if in a maze -- seem to be mere child’s play here, as well they should be. The guard symbolizes another time, the child represents today.
14-SEP-2005
Shadows of the past, Kotor Town, Montenegro, 2005
Medieval Kotor Town is a warren of medieval streets and tiny squares. I wanted to use the looming late afternoon shadows to abstract a small section of the town and allow the old walls to speak to the imaginations of my viewers. I found one small square where the shadow of an entire building overlapped with another, creating a dark wall superimposed upon a lighted one. I waited for a small figure to step into a thin window of light falling between the two shadows. In doing so, her own shadow is projected on an old wall precisely where the shadows come together. They embrace her, but she is too deep in thought to notice. These shadowy walls, which are hundreds of years old, are living history, the stuff of dreams. It is the abstraction of light and shadow that gives voice to them here.
14-SEP-2005
Café, Kotor Town, Montenegro, 2005
Medieval Kotor Town is filled with small cafes such as this one. Although this is essentially a café scene, it is really built around a stone wall that is hundreds of years old. Three people sit on one side of it, talking and listening. On the other side of the wall, a man sits in a window. They take no notice of him. And he seems to ignore them as well. Isolated by that wall, he is in own world. And that is what walls do. They divide, isolate, and often insulate. And that is what this image is about -- space and separation.
19-SEP-2005
Asleep, Ancient Agora, Athens, Greece, 2005
The Ancient Agora is a huge display of ruins in the middle of downtown Athens. It contains the remnants of the buildings that served as the political heart of ancient Athens as far back as 600 B.C., as well as whatever may remain of the great Roman public buildings that succeeded them two thousand years ago. I photographed this humble stone wall, perhaps once part an ancient structure, as it recedes into darkness, making it seem as if it were running back into time. Rocks are randomly strewn around this slumbering dog, as if to extend the influence of that wall entirely around it. The dog must sense comfort here or it would not be able sleep so soundly. Perhaps its ancestors roamed this same ground when Socrates was executed near here in 399 BC, or when the Roman Emperor Nero toured Athens in 66 AD? If only this wall could speak or the dog could tell us about its dreams. I wanted this image to encourage us to listen with our own imaginations.