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urban

cityscapes & street

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   The pulse of civilization taken in cities and towns around the globe. Where the walls sing, stories ring, smells cling, and tricks are king. City-escapades and street follies.


 

collections

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collections

photos | urban

Office Prison Symmetry

behind bars: office or prison? 

Looking at it from the outside, I can’t help seeing bars in the symmetry that comes with the sterile and institutional blueprints of office buildings around the world. see more

photos | urban

Afterglow Fader

when Night slays Day, we stand in its way

…the last fire in the sky ebbs into paler shades of orange and yellow, before wandering west on the spectrum towards far colors like indigo. Meanwhile, on earth’s surface, civilization flips the switch to side with the day, and bulbs drip into the evanescent stream of hues like florescent droplets… see more

photos | urban

Night Delight

allures of the dark side

...for the daring nocturnal creatures among us there is a deserted, silent world waiting after hours; and like moths we flutter towards its discoveries, wherever a speck of light flecks the darkness.   see more

regions

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regions

South America

From Medellin to La Paz to Rio, the hills bled bricks. The street art wasn’t born there, [...] urbane installations mixed with flamboyant Pacha Mama spirituality that formed a fairly tame and countenanced link between dyed colonialist old towns and glassy capitalist new towns.

Central America

Upon finding a “new” world, they just dumped there what they knew. As though the world had needed another Europe out of all things. And when they looked at their replica, they called Granada “Granada” because it looked like the other Granada.

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North America

From across the pond a child had dreamt what are memories now. What the books and films and songs had suggested was all true – the cities were as vast as they were tall and their lights always a million more than fathomable, and all the expected unusual cars were parked in all the right alleys.

South

(east) Asia

And if it really were deities who had made it all, they had done a wonderful job, freehand and with a wink.

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Central & West Asia

My mind was drawn to the socialist idealism, my heart to the democratic warmth encoded in these urban blueprints.

Northeast Asia

Plenty of intersections there. Was intersected with is, suits with sweats, metro lines with desire lines. Order, yes, but little messes and happenstances couldn’t be denied. Some urban savagery, a great many bulbs.

Africa

A patchwork of colorful culture, systemic poverty, crass luxuries, and every middle in-between, urban Africa is not one narrative, but all of them.

Middle East

And places rich in history gave birth to places richer in riches.

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Europe

With all that shingle mingle and cobble wobble going on, Europe looked pretty cozy in its old gold skin.

Oceania

There was more water than land down there and they settled where they landed, near the ocean that was their only connection with home – a water-band that would never be severed.

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a glimpse

 

 

 

 

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a glimpse

glimpse: BLUE SKY | Drained of its natural blue, the sky over Beijing hasn’t looked like itself for years. The notorious smog is a pale witness to the world’s largest carbon emissions. Long established factories for the world, China’s metropolises hardly get to catch their breath; the less so now that the hungry domestic middleclass is just getting comfortable at the consumerist table. It’s fair enough – the West has feasted for ages, all the while belching out CO2; let India, Brazil and China have their turn! But alas, doctor’s orders are a green diet. For everybody. Right now. And, foregoing its turn at pollution, China has become one of the front runners in role modeling for renewable energy: phasing out coal mines, challenging individuals and corporations by implementing strict regulations, and blowing away the smog with more wind energy than any other country.

glimpse: EVERY OTHER DAY | When your everyday train only runs every other day, when the spotty schedule is connected by no more than a rough guideline, when there is no shortage of long delays, when the central train station is filled with emptiness, then you might be in Cuba.

glimpse: BLUR | Keeping their demons at bay and the vague distance distant, they find comfort in the blur. The blur of not knowing. Not knowing what’s ahead. Ahead of them, of us, of tomorrow. Tomorrow’s tomorrow might be a turn, a junction, a future, a chance for chances. Chances are, it’s gonna rain, rain rain or rays, or both. Both freedom and opportunity make for a copious harvest here. Here is the now, now focused.

blue roofs, Paris, France

 

Paris / France · 2015   blue roofs

colorful house with birds in Cape Towns Bo-Kaap quarter

 

Bo-Kaap, Cape Town / South Africa · 2017   bird house

Huts in Cape Town's Cape Flats township

 

Cape Flats, Cape Town / South Africa · 2017   laundry day

 

Portland / USA · 2019   purple night

 

 

 

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related

related

countries | North America | USA

New York / Dream Arrival: Jamming Untamed Imagination into Tight Realities

a story of a dream coming truer and a city that was smaller the second time around

 

...there was certainly something endearing in that city coming down to earth from its pedestal... explore

photos | essays

The Street Around the Corner

tripping over nothing in everyday streets

 

Not imposing any art on them or desperately extrapolating some moxie that isn’t there, I strip their description down to only one statement and this is final: these are streets. see more

countries | Europe | Spain

Barcelona / Revolution in the Air, But Where?

people carry on ordinarily while the political stage is in flames

 

...yet, between these societal lines, where the quintessence of our life as human beings dwells, our situation remains largely the same, despite political turmoil... explore

countries | Northeast Asia | Japan

Tokyo / Lingering Alone

the difference between seeing a place and being in a place

 

...everybody is keen on seeing these picture-perfect places, but nobody seems interested in actually being there, in staying in these moments. Peek, cross off the list, move on to the next aisle... explore

others

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others

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other photo categories

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