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

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. 

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.

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.