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Visual essays

A portrait, a painting, or several photographs can give an essay its starting point. Follow the images as their details shift the direction of the writing.

9 stories
The art of paying attention

Looking closely at studio portraits reveals the small decisions around a face. Light and framing guide the eye, while the person in the picture remains open to more than one reading.

A lone pedestrian crossing diagonal bands of sunlight and shadow.

Seen from above, pavement becomes a field of light and a passerby changes the composition. An essay on framing the street while leaving room for a person to interrupt the plan.

An empty theater with rows of red seats facing a closed gold curtain

Empty red seats face a closed gold curtain. A look at the theater before an imagined audience arrives, moving from the shape of the auditorium to the closer details of seating and the work around stage lighting.

When the familiar becomes strange

Move closer to a painted face and the picture starts to loosen. An essay on viewing distance, the edges of a portrait, and how much a second look can change what seemed settled.

a painting of a man standing in a room

A gray-coated figure looks toward work gathered in a dark room. Frames and leaning images make the surroundings of attention visible, inviting a closer look at how pictures share a space and how a viewer finds a place among them.

An ordinary kind of beautiful

A dark picture asks the eye to do a little work. On reflections in glasses, faces at the edge of a room, and the pleasure of seeing a scene become legible by degrees.