Urban Legends
Shortly after I moved into the city, I got rid of my car, and my primary mode of transportation became my own two feet. Walking forced me to slow down and notice the world around me. Simple pleasures, like flowers peeking over my neighbor’s fence to say “Good morning,” suddenly seemed to be everywhere. But so was the trash, the graffiti, the house in desperate need of repair.
Perhaps it was the time spent in my own head while walking here or there that helped me realize that I could choose my reaction to not only the beautiful, but also the less than beautiful. At that point, gang tagging on a nearby stone wall and the crumpled McDonald’s bag on the sidewalk in front of my house ceased to be personal attacks and became vital threads in the tapestry of urban life that I felt needed to be documented.
Like a beautiful garden surrounded by chain link and asphalt, the city is full of contrasts and non-sequiturs. I took most of these photographs within about a mile of my home in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston, on routes that I travel regularly.
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