beginnings – Greg Urbano

Stacked Chrome Muscle: The Architecture of American Power

In a 2014 throwback photo, Greg Urbano captures a chrome muscle car engine at a car show, transforming it into a sculptural testament of American automotive culture. The monochrome composition highlights its intricate details and engineering philosophy, transcending typical automotive photography into fine art, reflecting power and craftsmanship.

Throwback Photo 2014, Stacked Chrome Muscle — Throwback photo from 2014 of a stacked, chrome muscle car engine I capture at a car show and then post processed in black and white.

In this striking image from Greg Urbano’s early photographic explorations, the viewer encounters not merely an engine, but a sculptural monument to American automotive culture. Shot at a car show in 2014, this photograph demonstrates how technical documentation can transcend its utilitarian origins to become a meditation on form, texture, and cultural identity.

The composition centers on a magnificent array of individual throttle bodies—eight polished chrome velocity stacks rising like organ pipes from the engine block below. Urbano’s decision to shoot at f/8.0 provides exceptional depth of field, rendering every fluted trumpet in sharp detail while maintaining visual coherence across the crowded mechanical landscape. The MSD Digital 6AL ignition box in the upper left corner grounds the image in specificity, reminding us this is a real machine, not an abstract study.

What elevates this work beyond conventional automotive photography is the photographer’s masterful use of monochrome. The conversion to black and white strips away distraction and reveals the essential geometry of performance engineering. Chrome becomes a study in gradation—from brilliant highlights on the velocity stack lips to the deep blacks of the engine valley below. The ribbed valve covers create rhythmic patterns that echo throughout the frame, establishing a visual cadence that draws the eye deeper into the mechanical complexity.

The lighting deserves particular attention. Working with the ambient conditions of a car show—notoriously challenging for photographers—Urbano has captured specular highlights that accentuate the three-dimensional quality of each component. The reflections dancing across polished surfaces create a sense of movement and life in what is, paradoxically, a static object. One can almost hear the anticipated roar of this engine, feel the vibration of its operation.

From a curatorial perspective, this image belongs firmly within the “Beginnings” chapter of Urbano’s journey. It reveals a photographer discovering his eye, learning to see beyond the obvious. Car shows present a particular challenge: everything is designed to be spectacular, yet the very abundance of visual stimulus can overwhelm. Here, the photographer has exercised editorial judgment, finding a perspective that isolates and celebrates a single element of automotive excess.

The stacked throttle bodies themselves represent a specific philosophy in performance engineering—individual runners for each cylinder, optimized airflow, uncompromising dedication to power over practicality. This photograph captures that ethos perfectly. There is nothing subtle about this engine, and Urbano wisely chooses not to apologize for its maximalism. Instead, he leans into the drama, using his technical choices to amplify the subject’s inherent theatricality.

The 24mm focal length on his Nikon D7100 provides just enough wide-angle perspective to encompass the scene without introducing distortion that would undermine the precision of these machined components. Shot at 1/30th of a second—relatively slow for handheld work—the image’s sharpness suggests careful technique, perhaps braced against the engine bay or shot with controlled breathing.

This photograph documents more than machinery; it captures a particular strain of American automotive culture that values power, craftsmanship, and conspicuous performance. In rendering it so beautifully, Urbano elevates the vernacular tradition of car photography into something approaching fine art—a promising beginning indeed for a photographer learning to find extraordinary subjects in ordinary places.

Night at the Dali: Architecture as Teacher

In 2013, Greg Urbano’s photography evolved, particularly with architecture and HDR techniques. His night photograph of the Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg showcases his technical growth and artistic maturity. Through careful exposure settings and HDR processing, he captures dramatic contrasts, reflecting his continuous exploration and adaptability in night photography.

Architecture in HDR 2013, Night at the Dali — 2013 was a breakout year for my photography. I started shooting more architecture and post processing in HDR. Here is a photograph taken at night of the extremely cool Dali Museum at night. Highlighting its geodesic window panes. This place was only a short walk from where I lived in downtown St Petersburg Florida along the waterfront.. Shot with a Nikon D7100.

In this 2013 photograph of St. Petersburg’s Dalí Museum, Greg Urbano captures far more than an architectural landmark—he documents a photographer in the act of discovery, using his camera to decode the visual language of light, structure, and time. The image stands as a testament to what the Chapter 1 — Beginnings theme celebrates: the transformative power of experimentation and the artistic maturity that emerges from technical curiosity.

The composition immediately announces ambition. Shot with a 14mm ultra-wide lens, the perspective tilts upward to embrace the museum’s extraordinary geodesic glass bubble, that surrealist flourish erupting from an otherwise rectilinear concrete structure. The ultra-wide focal length creates dramatic spatial distortion—the glass sphere appears to swell toward the viewer while the building’s mass recedes at impossible angles. This is deliberate visual exaggeration, the photographer using optical characteristics as expressive tools rather than merely recording what stands before him.

Urbano’s fifteen-second exposure at ƒ/11 reveals careful consideration of night photography’s particular demands. The narrow aperture ensures front-to-back sharpness across the complex geometric planes, while the extended shutter speed gathers sufficient light to render both the illuminated interior spaces and the textured concrete exterior. At ISO 250, he maintained image quality while managing the sensor’s heat buildup during long exposures—a technical balancing act that night photography ruthlessly exposes when miscalculated.

The HDR processing, which Urbano identifies as a focus of his 2013 work, serves the subject’s inherent drama without overwhelming it. High Dynamic Range imaging compresses the vast tonal range between the glowing glass panels and the deep purple-gray twilight sky into a single viewable image. Here, the technique preserves detail in both the brightest interior lights and the shadowed architectural framework—the black steel triangles that form the geodesic pattern remain visible and textured rather than silhouetted into flat darkness.

What distinguishes this image within the Beginnings chapter is its transparency about process. The HDR treatment shows characteristic traces of learning—slight luminous halos around high-contrast edges, enhanced local contrast that gives surfaces an almost tactile presence, color saturation pushed just beyond naturalism. These are not flaws but evidence of active experimentation, a photographer testing the boundaries of technique to understand where effectiveness ends and excess begins.

The photograph’s context enriches its meaning considerably. This museum stood a brief walk from the photographer’s residence, close enough for repeated visits, for returning under different conditions, for the kind of sustained engagement that transforms casual documentation into genuine study. This proximity allowed Urbano to approach the subject with evolving sophistication, each attempt building on lessons from the previous one.

The wet pavement in the foreground adds an unexpected grace note—evidence of recent rain creating reflective surfaces that double the architectural lighting, adding visual complexity without cluttering the composition. Whether intentional or opportunistic, this detail demonstrates the photographer’s developing awareness of how environmental conditions can enhance rather than merely complicate a scene.

Viewed within the arc of artistic development, this photograph captures a crucial transition point: technical capability catching up with visual ambition, the gap between conception and execution narrowing with each frame. It is the work of a photographer actively becoming, embracing complexity as the necessary path toward mastery.

The Gulf Pier: A Foundation in Light and Structure

Greg Urbano’s “Landscapes in HDR” captures the Gulf Fishing Pier at Fort de Soto Park, reflecting his artistic development in photography. Utilizing a Nikon D7100, he balances composition with HDR techniques, achieving naturalistic vibrancy without over-processing. The image embodies a pivotal moment in skill mastery, exploring the connection between environment and human creation.

Landscapes in HDR, this is an image taken at Fort de Soto park in Pinellas county Florida of the Gulf Fishing Pier. This was one of my favorite places to visit on an almost weekly basis while living in St Pete. What a beautiful view of the Gulf of Mexico! Shot with a Nikon D7100.

In the early stages of any photographer’s journey, there exists a pivotal moment when technical curiosity converges with artistic vision. Greg Urbano’s “Landscapes in HDR” from 2013 captures precisely this convergence—a photograph that speaks to the fundamentals of seeing while revealing the seeds of a maturing artistic voice.

The Gulf Fishing Pier at Fort de Soto Park presents itself as an exercise in classical composition, yet the image transcends mere documentation. Shot with a Nikon D7100 at 14mm, the photographer embraced the distortion inherent in ultra-wide-angle photography, using it not as a limitation but as a tool for emphasis. The pier’s concrete pathway stretches toward the horizon with geometric insistence, its weathered surface textured with salt stains and age—details that anchor the ethereal quality of the surrounding environment.

What distinguishes this work within the context of Chapter 1—Beginnings is the deliberate exploration of HDR processing, a technique that dominated landscape photography in the early 2010s. Rather than falling into the trap of over-processing that plagued much HDR work of this era, Urbano demonstrates restraint. The luminous gradations in the sky—from deep azure to wispy white—retain a naturalistic quality while revealing detail across an impressive tonal range. The turquoise waters of the Gulf of Mexico maintain their vibrancy without crossing into hypersaturation, suggesting an eye already sensitive to the boundaries between enhancement and artifice.

The technical choices reveal a photographer building his fundamental vocabulary. The aperture of ƒ/8.0 ensures critical sharpness from the foreground concrete to the distant structures, while the fast shutter speed of 1/400s freezes the subtle motion of the scene—likely the flutter of distant flags or the movement of the few figures visible along the pier. At ISO 100, the image maintains clarity in its textures, from the horizontal railings that create rhythmic lines to the architectural shelters that punctuate the composition’s middle ground.

What makes this photograph significant in understanding Urbano’s artistic evolution is not its perfection but its purposefulness. The nearly symmetrical composition, the careful attention to the leading lines, the consideration of how architectural elements frame the natural environment—these are the building blocks upon which more complex visual narratives are constructed. The weekly visits to this location mentioned in his notes speak to something essential in photographic development: the practice of returning, of seeing the same subject under different conditions, of learning through repetition.

The landscape itself offers something eternal—the meeting point of human construction and natural expanse. The pier extends confidently into the Gulf, a gesture of connection between land and water, between the photographer’s position and the infinite horizon. In capturing this scene, Urbano was not merely documenting a favorite location but engaging with fundamental questions about how we frame our relationship to place and space.

Within the broader context of “Beginnings,” this image exemplifies the necessary stage of mastering craft before transcending it. The imperfect attempts referenced in the chapter description are not failures but essential experiments. Here, we witness a photographer learning to see in high dynamic range, to compose with geometric precision, and to capture the luminous quality of coastal light—all foundational skills that would inform the more sophisticated work to come.

This is where journeys begin: in the clarity of intention, the discipline of practice, and the recognition that every master was once a student of light.