Today’s watercolor experiment:

I am still in the midst of my huge project of digitizing all my film negatives from the 1980s through the end of the last century. It is a chore. The only joy I feel now is when I come across a photo that works. This happens about 10 percent of the time (in keeping with Sturgeon’s Law: 90% of everything is crap). It is that 10% chance that keeps me going.

I’ve noticed several themes in my work: fire hydrants, manhole covers, newsstands, graffiti and all the visual jokes I can find.

Today I inch into my newsstand theme, reluctantly easing away from graffiti for now. Don’t be alarmed, I’m not done with graffiti yet.

Here is my watercolor of a Manhattan newsstand (circa 1990) with a minimal amount of graffiti.

I’m not making this up. I know it is a shock to see a relatively ungraffitied vertical surface in 1990s NYC. Here is the reference photo:

It must have been a newly installed newsstand.