Horizon Line

Looking out over the calm gulf waters at the distant horizon, the bands of colors across sky and sea are gently meditiative. Objects in the foreground may come unglued and seem to float. It can be worth a few minutes to let them.

Two Views of One Place

The qualities of a built environment have a lot to do with how people feel about a place. The alley behind the new Palm Avenue parking garage is wide, clean, new, and bordered on each side by towering walls of concrete. Looking down this oversized tunnel one is greeted with a surprising view of the run down and graffiti-graced backside of a Main Street…

Singular by the Sea

Two singular items. Their colors and shapes speak. Does it matter what they are, or is it better just to wonder what they might be?

The Cross

The cross is one of humanity’s more ancient and ubiquitous symbols. An early interpretation was as a representation of the intersection between the divine (the vertical line) and the earthly (the horizontal line). In modern times this has been trivialized in our use of the cross on road signs to signify an intersection of roads ahead. The cross has also represented the division of…

Where the Land and Water Meet

The land and sea meet gently along Siesta Key on Florida’s Gulf coast. A wide expanse of white sand tapers gradually toward the water, and the water subtly deepens as one walks away from shore. And sometimes, land and sea intermix when heavy rain, or waves during a falling tide, leave channels in the sand where shallow pools linger until filled in by the…

Friends and Performers

People enjoying a festival are one of the many things that help define a place and a community. The two men standing next to each other, one in red festival garb, look up the street and communicate as men often do — by standing next to each other saying nothing. And the young girl concentrates on her performance as a majorette, baton in hand,…

The Adults’ Parade

These are two of a series of images from the Adults’ Parade — the culmination of the Christmas festival on St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands. If you enjoy a party, can find the shade, drink beer in the afternoon, and move to the earsplitting sounds of reggae, soca and calypso, you will like the Adults’ Parade and its genuine atmosphere of a…

Back Doors and Alleys

What is it with back doors and the alley? Utilitarian and faded, sometimes littered with discarded goods, a garbage can, maybe a place to park, the alley beckons with a bit of mystery. Unlike the front door’s public face, the alley may offer a glimpse behind the curtain, a slightly different view of the life of the city.

Water Features

Water can be a violent and stormy sea or calm and meditative, a soft yet powerful presence reflecting the sky above. Full of life, essential to life, water moves and changes like a living thing. These images pay homage to some of these qualities. The calm waters of Sarasota Bay spanned by the delicate line of the Ringling Bridge, and the rich freshwater swamp…

Doors to Different Realities

There was a greeting card with the picture of a dog by a screen door with the caption, “A door is something the dog wants to be on the other side of.” Anyone with a dog knows the truth of that. If he’s in, he wants to be out — and if he’s out he wants in. People, on the other hand, sometimes feel…