About Lenny Greenwald

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The subjects of Lenny Greenwald's photographs come alive at night.

A foot-and-ankle surgeon and Palo Alto resident, Greenwald searches for the scene into which people, his cast of characters, drift into the environment.

"You get a whole different genre of people working at night. ... I like the idea of the people and characters there and that nobody posed, of people as part of the landscape. Whatever happens, that's the way it is," he said.

Greenwald does most of his work in black and white. He eschews digital photography for the traditional negative, printing each photograph himself. In the darkroom, he painstakingly works to capture the nighttime tonalities. That's the challenge of nighttime photography, he said.

Greenwald was working on a 24-hour photo essay of North Beach as part of a Foothill College Photo Club project when he came across the CaffÈ Trieste street scene. The photo captures the nuances of the cafe on a rainy night.

Greenwald has been shooting photos since age 13 but became serious about the hobby in 2003. He has taken photography courses at Foothill College and Stanford Continuing Studies.

Delving into the urban landscape has taken him to places outside of the public eye. His series on the F-line Muni Metro streetcars got him a backstage ticket to the streetcar yard, capturing the deeper realm of urban life.

--Sue Dremann