Carl Schurz Park, Alienation As The New Normal, New York Street Photography

Carl Schurz Park, in New York's Upper East Side, provides the perfect visual narrative for technology separating us.

Is the idea that technology keeps us connected true? Or is it the opposite? in New Normal, we find two women, just feet from each other, leaning on the same railing, the setting filled with eye-catching elements, and both seem to be as disconnected from each other as they are from everything around them.

In this casual scene from Carl Schurz Park and the others that follow, urban landscape photographer Deborah Julian makes her case about how we fit -or fail to fit-within our natural surroundings.

Carl Schurz Park, New Normal and More New York Street Photography

People in New York's Urban Landscape

New Normal

Deborah Julian Art

What Does This Picture Tells Us About How We Live Now

Urban Landscape Photography as Narrative

On a quiet, autumn afternoon, urban landscape photographer Deborah Julian found this scene. At the center of New Normal are two apparently unrelated women. Lost in their cell phone conversations, they seem disconnected from each other and their surroundings.

We may now have become accustomed to strangers weaving almost robotically among us, especially in cities, their headphones plugged in their ears or lost in conversations on cell phones.

What enriches this urban landscape art is the way it paints the spectacular contrast between the dramatic urban landscape and the flatness of being fixed in technology. With the swirling currents of Hell Gate below them and the impact of a slate gray sky, the women could as easily have been standing on some barren urban landscape or in the laundromat with clothes sloshing all around them.

Impromptu, Abstraction In Carl Schurz Park

Hidden Coves in City Parks

Impromptu, Carl Schurz Park

Deborah Julian Art

An Abstract Playground

A Small Cove in Carl Schurz Park

On the same afternoon, with sun breaking through the clouds, Deborah Julian found a small group playing an improvised game of soccer. The image is a little abstract, with a concrete playground softened by shrubs and flowers.

A surreal visitor strollers out of the frame, at contrast with the energetic children.

A Walk Through Carl Schurz Park

Video I Made In The Park

Carl Schurz Park, Clouds

New York Urban Landscape Photography

Carl Schurz Park, Clouds

Deborah Julian Art

Walking In The Clouds In Carl Schurz Park

Our Place in Nature

In this photograph, a woman walks among the clouds on the horizon in the park.

Framed between clouds, trees and blue sky, her place in the urban landscape is very different than those above. And the landscape itself, marked by softer, more natural elements, is more welcoming.

The story in these photographs is about our choices within the urban landscapes in which most of us live, and it's emphasized here by the easier environment of a city park. Even here, the pictures suggest, we don't quite connect. Urban landscapes can be harsh, and it may be that technology increases the harshness and separation.