AI / ECLECTIC SIDEWALKS OF NY 1990

By Mauricio Candela

In the ever-evolving world of photography, there’s a new kind of lens through which to view the world: the artificial kind. As someone deeply rooted in visual storytelling, I’ve long relied on the spontaneous beauty of real life—natural light, imperfect faces, urban textures. But recently, I’ve found myself captivated by something less tangible, yet just as emotionally resonant: the ability of artificial intelligence to bring imagined memories to life.

This project—Eclectic Sidewalks of NY, 1990—is my tribute to the raw energy and soulful grit of New York City in the early ‘90s. Not the sanitized, curated version. But the real thing: chaotic, diverse, rhythmic. A city that never asked for permission to be photographed. This isn’t documentary photography in the traditional sense—it’s a fusion of AI, nostalgia, and urban imagination.

The Power of Artificial Intelligence in Photography

From Fleeting Thought to Visual Reality

Artificial Intelligence is reshaping creative expression. For me, tools like Midjourney act not as shortcuts, but as collaborators. With prompts rooted in my memories, aesthetics, and lived experiences, I’m able to generate images that feel eerily real—like vivid dreams translated into pixels.

This isn’t a replacement for photography. It’s an extension of visual storytelling, a way to breathe new life into ideas that could never have been captured with a traditional camera.

“With each digital stroke and every imagined portrait, I’m not just playing with pixels—I’m telling stories that were never seen, but always felt.”

Reimagining New York in the 1990s

Why 1990s NYC?

The 1990s were a transformative time in New York. The city was alive with contradiction—gritty and glamorous, dangerous and divine. It was the heyday of analog film, subway graffiti, boom boxes, street poets, and counterculture.

As someone who’s always been drawn to urban street photography, this era calls to me like a familiar song. In this AI-generated series, I explore the eclectic sidewalk culture of that decade:

• Buskers belting soulful melodies at Union Square.

• Artists and punks clashing colors and ideologies in SoHo.

• Deli owners and poets, faces wrinkled by wisdom and weather.

• Night markets glowing in the haze of sodium-vapor lights.

This is my imagined version of NYC in the ‘90s—not exactly what was, but what could have been.

The Characters of the Sidewalk

Portraits of the Unseen

This collection is built around characters—people I’ve never met, yet feel like I know. Every portrait is imagined, but rooted in truth. I work with archetypes: the jazz musician in a worn leather jacket, the Dominican barber with clippers buzzing on a milk crate, the Latina abuela wrapped in Puerto Rican flags on a folding chair.

These fictional individuals represent real stories—fragments of culture, fragments of memory. In many ways, they’re every city’s people, but especially New York’s.

Natural Light, Even When It’s Not

Simulating Photography’s Soul

A real photograph has texture. Light bleeds in. Shadows fall where they shouldn't. That's part of what gives an image soul—and that's what I replicate through AI. Every prompt I use in Midjourney includes references to:

• Natural lighting

• Film grain texture

• Color tones inspired by Kodachrome or Fuji Superia

• Street depth of field

• Weather conditions (fog, golden hour, neon reflections)

By pushing these parameters, I simulate the unpredictable beauty of real-world conditions.

AI as a Tool, Not a Threat

Where Human Vision Meets Machine Imagination

Some photographers see AI as a danger to the craft. I see it as a tool—one more brush in the artist’s kit. This project wasn’t about letting a machine take over. It was about guiding the machine with human emotion, experience, and narrative.

AI didn’t create these images on its own—I did. The prompts were shaped by my years in photography, advertising, and visual storytelling. The mood, the emotion, the angles—they're all extensions of what I’ve shot through a real lens for decades.

What This Means for the Future of Visual Storytelling

We are entering an era where imagined memories can be captured as vividly as real ones. That opens up endless creative possibilities:

• Fashion campaigns set in eras never photographed.

• Street photography in cities that no longer exist.

• Portraits of people who lived only in your mind.

It’s not about replacing photography—it’s about redefining what can be photographed.

Final Thoughts: Fiction That Feels True

“Eclectic Sidewalks of NY, 1990” is not about historical accuracy. It’s about emotional authenticity. Through AI, I’ve recreated a version of New York that never quite existed, but somehow always has. In the faces, textures, colors, and glances—I’ve found something real in the unreal.

And in doing so, I’ve proven something to myself: Photography isn’t just about what we see—it’s about what we feel.