Reflections
Paris After Rain
A rain-soaked Paris street becomes a meditation on peace, memory, and the meanings photographs acquire over time.
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Solitude is not always loneliness. It is often the space where reflection, healing, and understanding quietly emerge.
The photographs in this exhibition invite us to pause and consider those moments when silence becomes part of the story being preserved.
The Exhibition
Featured Works
People
The Long Descent
Two strangers occupy the same public passage while remaining absorbed in private worlds, turning an ordinary London underpass into a meditation on reflection and choice.
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Cities
Before They Arrived
An empty dining room awaits the arrival of its guests. Created before conversation filled the space, the photograph reflects on expectation, absence, and the quiet anticipation that exists before shared experiences begin.
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Cities
Echoes of the Corner Café
An empty neighborhood café in Palermo carries the atmosphere of another era, preserving the character of a place shaped by countless conversations even during a quiet lunch hour.
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Reflections
Where Thoughts Come to Rest
A man sits alone at a neighborhood restaurant in Palermo, Buenos Aires, absorbed in a private moment. Photographed discreetly in July 2009 while Francisco Colón was living in the city, the image observes solitude without attempting to explain it.
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Journeys
Between Stops
Passengers wait across the tracks at Fulton Street subway station in Manhattan on September 6, 2015. Framed by the station's aged steel columns, the people occupy separate spaces along the same platform—some standing together, others alone, checking a phone, carrying luggage, or simply waiting. Photographed while traveling through New York City with my daughter on our way toward the Battery, the image captures an ordinary pause between destinations.
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Nature
Standing Alone
A solitary tree stands beneath an expansive December sky near Killeen, Texas, its remaining red leaves contrasting with the winter landscape. Photographed on December 24, 2017, during a walk through the area, the scene reflects a recurring attraction to trees that stand apart from their surroundings. A curving path disappears beyond the tree, leaving its destination unseen—a quiet reminder that while the present may be known, what lies ahead remains beyond view.
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people
The City Keeps Walking
An unidentified person bends over a crutch while holding a small cup on a Paris sidewalk as pedestrians continue with their daily lives. Photographed near the Seine on February 26, 2013, the scene presents a quieter contrast to the familiar image of Paris as the City of Love and the City of Light. Whether the person was experiencing pain, disability, poverty, or performing a practiced role remains unknown. The photograph preserves what could be observed without claiming what could not be known.
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Reflections
The Gentleman I Wasn’t Looking For
A small stenciled gentleman in a top hat steadies himself between a walking cane and an expansive weathered wall in Paris. Surrounded by stains, scratches, and negative space, the anonymous figure appears unexpectedly human despite his simple painted form. Discovered casually while walking through the city, he transforms an ordinary wall into a quiet meditation on age, endurance, and vulnerability.
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Cities
Small Against the Night
A solitary compact car rests beneath the towering façade of a residential building in Chelsea, London. Rows of windows and scattered interior lights emphasize the immense scale of the architecture, making the little vehicle appear almost toy-like beneath it. Discovered during a long walk from Hammersmith toward the Tower of London, the ordinary nighttime scene became a quiet study of scale, solitude, and urban stillness.
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People
The Company of Empty Chairs
A solitary woman sits aboard Tattershall Castle, a floating pub and entertainment venue moored on the River Thames opposite the London Eye. Quietly smoking while rows of empty tables and chairs surround her, she appears absorbed in her own thoughts. Warm light separates her from the darkness as blue deck lights and reflections move across the river behind her. Photographed from a considerable distance shortly after midnight, the scene preserves a private moment of contemplation within a space intended for conversation, companionship, and crowds.
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People
While She Waits
A woman sits quietly beside a street display on a nighttime arcade in Cartagena, Colombia, absorbed in the light of her phone. Empty chairs surround her while containers of goods, a nearby restaurant, and contrasting pools of warm and cool light suggest a street temporarily between moments of activity. What she is waiting for remains unknown, allowing an ordinary pause to become an open-ended story.
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People
While the World Moved
While photographing the Mexico City Pride parade from an elevated position above the crowd, I noticed a man sitting quietly amid the movement and energy surrounding him. I zoomed in as he rested with a cigarette in his hand, seemingly detached from the celebration unfolding nearby. By isolating only his hand, the cigarette, drifting smoke, and the pavement beneath him, the photograph removes the surrounding chaos from view while preserving the contrast that first caught my attention: a moment of complete stillness while the world around him continued to move.
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Reflections
Between the Curtains, Rio
Made from a room at the Sheraton Hotel in Rio de Janeiro, this January 2003 photograph records a morning deliberately anticipated. Dark curtains narrow the view to a sunrise emerging over the Atlantic, while the surrounding glass and interior panels repeat traces of the changing light. The balcony door had been left open overnight, with the curtains resting much as they appear in the photograph. Rising early specifically to experience the sunrise, the photographer found the moment worth the effort—the quiet room becoming both shelter and viewpoint as morning arrived over Rio.
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Photography Wing
Standing His Ground
A lone dog stands at the entrance to a narrow passage leading toward the Thames Path in London. Framed between contrasting brick buildings, the animal appears almost stationed at the threshold, transforming an ordinary passageway into a moment of quiet uncertainty and observation.
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Photography Wing
A Stranger Who Reads
While walking through Chelsea near the River Thames in London, Francisco Colón noticed a warmly illuminated window in an otherwise dark building. Through the glass were shelves filled with books, a lamp, and an unidentified portrait. His own love of books created an unexpected sense of connection with someone he had never met—a relationship discovered simply by looking.
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Photography Wing
Between the Passing
A solitary flamboyán blooms in a narrow strip of land in Lake Worth, Florida, positioned between the railroad tracks and busy Dixie Highway. Surrounded by utility lines, fencing, buildings, traffic, and the infrastructure of everyday movement, the tree remains still—a brilliant presence in a place designed largely for passing through.
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Photography Wing
I Disturbed His Sleep
While walking through Mexico City late at night, Francisco Colón encountered an area where several people were sleeping along a wall. As he photographed one man surrounded by his belongings, the man opened his eyes and briefly looked directly toward the camera. Moments later, he covered his face and returned to sleep. Colón never learned his name or circumstances and never saw him again. The photograph preserves only what was witnessed: a stranger, a temporary place to sleep, and a brief moment of awareness between the person being photographed and the person behind the camera.
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People
What the Photograph Remembered
A solitary man reads a Spanish-language newspaper outside Puerta de los Tristes, a restaurant along Granada's historic Paseo de los Tristes. Around him, the café tables remain empty as the late morning quietly unfolds. I do not remember the precise moment when I made this photograph, but the image helped reconstruct what memory could not. The newspaper, empty chairs, storefront signage, and geography of the street returned the moment piece by piece. Sometimes the photograph makes the story. In this case, the story made the photograph.
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Nature & Stillness
The Moon That Followed Us
Photographed handheld somewhere in Mexico, The Moon That Followed Us transforms a familiar celestial subject into a vessel for personal memory. As a child in Paterson, New Jersey, Francisco Colón ran with his brother and cousins believing the Moon was following them. Decades later, it became connected to Ana Gabriel's song Luna, a lost love, and the woman with whom he would eventually travel the world—the experiences that helped inspire Fronteras y Ecos. The surrounding darkness expresses distance and solitude, while the Moon remains a quiet companion across childhood, love, travel, and time.
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People & Daily Life
Enough
A partially filled cup of beer rests beside the Thames in London, its amber contents catching the light while streetlamps dissolve into a softly blurred background. Encountered during an evening walk, the unfinished drink suggested a quiet decision: someone had enough. Their reason remains unknown, but the photograph invites reflection on recognizing when to stop, even when more remains.
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People & Daily Life
The Question I Still Ask
A solitary figure sits curled inward beside a storefront, hands clasped around drawn knees, while a brilliant red umbrella fills the foreground. The contrast between the polished warmth of the interior and the quiet vulnerability of the person outside creates a scene of separation, shelter, and uncertainty. The photograph asks without answering: who is this person, what brought them here, and what story existed before this moment?
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People & Daily Life
Between Shifts
A solitary man rests on a bench during the early morning in Mexico City, his hood lowered over his face and a backpack secured between his legs. Behind the iron fence, other people are already moving through the beginning of their day. His posture suggests profound fatigue, but the photograph leaves his journey unresolved: he may be preparing to go to work, returning after a long shift, or simply waiting for whatever comes next. Between Shifts preserves that uncertain interval between work and home, movement and rest.
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Photography Wing
The Quiet Introduction
The Quiet Introduction captures a chestnut horse encountered during a walk in Killeen, Texas, on December 24, 2017. Standing quietly in its pasture near the home of Francisco Colón's former wife, the horse turned its attention toward the photographer, creating a brief moment of recognition between them. Its steady gaze, falling blond mane, and the softly rendered fence and trees transform an unplanned encounter into a quiet study of presence and connection.
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Many photographs appear empty until we recognize ourselves within them.
Perhaps solitude is less about being alone than about listening carefully enough to hear our own thoughts.