This past spring, I took an online workshop called Photographing the Urban Landscape, from the Santa Fe Photography Workshops. I found the concept of picturing cities as “landscapes” interesting, very much new to me, and a fresh challenge.

It was also the first course I’d taken in a long while that dealt with the artistic and storytelling side of photography. Not since ten years ago when I celebrated my then-recent retirement with a workshop on location (coincidentally) in Santa Fe.

On this page are a few of my favorite images shot over the six weeks of the class. More of them are in this gallery, with even more here.

At the top, a contrast of old and new with some restored row houses from the early 20th century backed with some very 21st century apartments along U Street in DC.

In the 1960’s, urban planners wanted to revive this area of the city with cafes, shops, and housing, including wide, landscaped boulevards emulating Paris and other European cities. As you can see, it didn’t work out as they envisioned.

Cities are full of public spaces, obvious and not so. One of my favorite, somewhat hidden, examples in DC is the Kogod Courtyard in the Smithsonian Museum of American Art and Portrait Gallery. A peaceful place to take a break from the heat of summer (or cold of winter) and have lunch.

Cities are full of monuments, formal and not so much. And Washington certainly has more than its share. In DC, both Ben’s Chili Bowl and the panda in front more than qualify as monuments for the people who live here.

Finally, the headquarters for the US Department of Housing and Urban Development is considered one of the finest examples of brutalist architecture in the world. This little seating area in the front courtyard of that building is maybe an effort to make the space seem a little less brutal.