f6652fd4-6643-4ece-a50d-566cfdc2ddd7

Tree in Moonlight; Old Wall, Central Park

Sam Rittenberg

United States of America

refocus-dscn76901final-1757782128

“Flower Stand on the Corner” captures a New York flower stand transformed by color, light, and motion. The fleeting forms evoke the impermanence of beauty, not fixed but momentary, glimpsed in passing. It explores perception as a shifting boundary between form, feeling, and memory.

29bd1ed3-479d-4e0c-bcbb-0c0fab3b10a3

Nominee

Flower Stand on the Corner

“Tree in Moonlight” reflects the cyclical nature of beauty and being. A dilapidated wall in Central Park is transformed through color, light, and composition to reveal the protean character of existence and the enduring beauty of all things.

Honorable Mention

“Lime, Time, Lime” explores the infinite, cyclical nature of being. Shot in the W. Village, the image transforms a decaying container through shifts in color, light, and composition. These alterations reveal the paradox of destruction and creation, showing how beauty persists, evolves, and returns.

a9c22f6b-6bd5-48ac-b8be-cd4092773a03

Lime, Time, Lime; Construction Container

“Pael, Pink, and Otherwise” captures a weathered wall in Chelsea. Subtle shifts in tone, composition, and light highlight the space between decay and color, memory and perception, inviting reflection on the layered terrain of surface and time.

c8428f04-20f9-4e77-b63a-3245e5ce5599

Pale, Pink, and Otherwise; Old Wall, Chelsea

“Blue Skies, Brown Earth, Green Leaves” layers a photo of rusted iron with one of a fading green wall. Chipped paint, reshaped into leaves, lets ruin suggest renewal. Surface becomes symbol, capturing the fragile, fleeting transformations that define both nature and memory.

refocus-blue-skies-brown-earth-green-leaves_refocus-wpa_2025-1757773600

Blue Skies, Brown Earth, Green Leaves

“Abstritti 33” explores the cyclical nature of being. Shot in midtown Manhattan, it captures a weathered wall layered with torn posters. Through color and light, fragments are recomposed to reveal the paradox of being in a state of both creation and destruction, of being both finite and infinite.

refocus-abstiritti-33_refocus_wpa_-2025-1757616995

Abstritti 33

“Mobius” considers the infinite and cyclical nature of being. The image captures graffiti resembling a Möbius strip, painted on an old truck panel. Through light, color, and composition, it explores the paradox of existence - that ll thihngs are both finite and infinite, endless and ended.

refocus-mobius_wpa_2025-1757617542

Mobius

Paper, Poster, and Pixels” explores the infinite and cyclical nature of being. A Soho wall layered with fading posters becomes an urban abstraction shaped by time. Through color, light, and composition, the image expresses the paradox of being- all things are finite yet infinite, ended yet endless.

refocus-paper-posters-and-pixels_old-wall-soho_wpa_2025-1757617101

Paper, Poster, and Pixels

"Posting Wild, West Village” reimagines old posters on a construction wall into a layered abstraction. Through shifts in light, color, and composition, the image suggests the presence of the infinite that can be found in even the most ordinary and discarded of spaces.

refocus-posting-wild-west-village_wpa_2025-1757618346

Posting Wild, West Village

“Pink and Blue Become You” captures an old wall in Soho layered with torn, fading posters. Through shifts in light, color, and form, the image explores the paradox of being, where decay becomes renewal, destruction yields creation, and contraction brings emergence.

refocus-pink-and-blue-becomes-you_refocus-wpa_2025-1757617948

Pink and Blue Become You

“Walls” explores the cyclical nature of being through six images of weathered walls from the Dominican Republic to Soho. Color, light, and shifting elements were used to evoke the interplay of decay and renewal - a meditation on beauty, transience, emergence, and the oneness of all things.

refocus-paper-posters-and-pixels_old-wall-soho_ipa_2025-1747762097

refocus-autumn-in-the-vineyard_old-wall_north-coast-dominican-republic_ipa_2025-1747762181

refocus-orange-pixels-on-blue-pixels-old-wall-puerto-plata-dominican-republic_ipa_-2025-1747762191

refocus-leaves-upon-the-water_-old-tiled-wall-central-park_ipa_2025-1747762202

refocus-the-woods-in-moonlight_old-wall-central-park_ipa_2025-1747762209

Walls

“Leaves Upon the Water” is of a crumbling, tiled wall in northern Central Park. Through shifts in color, light, and form, the image explores the protean nature of beauty and being - where all things are ever changing, and in that change, we can glimpse the infinite and cyclical nature of being.

refocus-leaves-upon-the-water_-old-tiled-wall-central-park_ipa_2025-1747755187

Leaves Upon the Water

“Posting Wild, West Village” reimagines old posters on a construction wall into a layered abstraction. Through shifts in light, color, and composition, the image suggests the presence of the infinite that exists in even the most ordinary and discarded of spaces.

refocus-posting-wild-west-village_ipa_-2025-1747755146

“A Sign of Life” explores the cyclical nature of existence. The image captures a torn poster-covered wall in Soho, that with a hidden dove-like figure holding an olive branch - like the tale of Noah. Color, light, and compositional change explore the paradox of simultaneous destruction and creation.

refocus-a-sign-of-life_wpa_2024-1728915562

A Sign of Life

“Wall, Weed, and Sky” considers the infinite and cyclical nature of beauty and being. It is of a once bright now fading wall adorned by the crown of weeds in front of it. Color and light more fully express the protean nature of their existence and their beauty, and by reference, that of all things.

refocus-wall-weed-and-sky_wpa_2024-1728915559

Wall Weed and Sky; Old Wall, Costa Norte, RD

“Lime, Time, Lime” explores the infinite and cyclical nature of existence. The image captures a decaying construction container in the West Village, using color, light, and composition to reveal the paradox of simultaneous destruction, creation, and connection within all things.

refocus-lime-time-lime_wpa_2024-1728915544

Lime, Time, Lime

“Torn” considers the infinite and cyclical nature of being. The image is of the tattered entrance to a long closed comic book convention. Color, light, and small compositional changes express the paradoxical nature of that which is simultaneously in a state of destruction and creation.