I’ve started to notice a thread tying together almost every photowalk I’ve been on so far.
After the picture-taking part, I make prints. I show them to participants and ask them to reflect on what they see. Often, the word mundane comes up. Not to describe their pictures, but in conversation about how easy it is to glaze over the scenes we pass again and again on our way to and from life’s responsibilities.
Matthew Chasney, a photographer and journalist living in Larchmere, takes pictures to push against that, in a way. He has an eye for social documentary, using photography to notice how abstract bits of culture and politics seep into everyday life.
But, he admitted to me, he doesn’t often take pictures in his own neighborhood.
“A lot of my work really — and this is something that I am very, very intentional about — is trying to find the beauty and the extraordinariness of the mundane,” Matthew said. “I do actually feel a little bit silly not really practicing that where I live.”
Originally from Parma, Matthew moved from Cleveland’s West Side to Larchmere about four years ago. He was drawn by more affordable rent, but also by what he describes as an informal sense of community.
“I like to be alive in a community,” he said. “I like to, you know, walk out my door, take a walk around the neighborhood and see people that I know.”
Part of Larchmere’s community, Matthew said, has to do with its craftspeople and small businesses. His partner runs a yoga studio on Larchmere. Next door, a book bindery recently opened. A few blocks down, an instrument restorer fixes up violins for musicians in the highest echelons of Cleveland’s art world.
Matthew and I met over breakfast at Big Al’s Diner before we set out on our photowalk. We sat down shortly after the place opened on a sub-freezing January weekend, but the restaurant’s phone was already ringing off the hook with pickup orders. The place was full by the time our food hit the table.
To our left, a group of friends chatted about their week. With near-religious dedication, they told us, they’ve met up at Big Al’s every Saturday morning for years.
Among Larchmere’s familiar faces, there’s a gentleman named Curtis, always carrying his walking stick in one hand. Matthew had seen him around but hadn’t properly introduced himself, he said. That changed when we ran into Curtis during our photowalk. Matthew asked for a picture.
“It was a good chance for me to meet a neighbor who I didn’t know,” Matthew said.
And there’s Mr. Gilbert. That’s not his name, but it’s what everyone in the neighborhood calls him because he runs Mr. Gilbert Hats on Larchmere. His real name is Robert Harris.
Robert named the store in honor of his son and grandson, Gilbert and Gilbert Jr. Robert’s son Gilbert was fatally shot in 1994. Gilbert Jr. was two years old at the time, so Robert took him in.
Now, Gilbert Jr. is 32 with two sons of his own, one of them named Gilbert. Gilbert Jr. hasn’t yet followed his grandfather into the hat business.
“He said, ‘Granddad, I love you, but this is your dream. My dream is trucks,’” Robert told me. “So I was in here. He said, ‘Come outside. Come out here.’ He had a big Mack dump truck sitting there. He said, ‘This is what I love to do.’ So I told him, I said, you blessed. But like I told him, I said, that go down, you still got this to fall back on.”
A few weeks later, I showed Matthew his pictures at Academy Tavern, one of Cleveland’s oldest continuously operating restaurants.
We laid our prints out on a high-top, and one of the bartenders stopped by to take a look. She told us she had done a similar photography project, inspired by Humans of New York, when she was in college at Bowling Green.
Both she and Matthew were drawn to a picture of Mr. Gilbert. Because of a malfunction with Matthew’s decades-old camera — which he affectionately calls “Grandpa” — two different pictures of Mr. Gilbert were overlaid onto the same frame of film. In both, he had his arms outstretched, welcoming us in his shop’s vestibule.
“That is the definition of a happy accident,” Matthew said. “Like he’s giving you a big hug.”
Matthew and I moved the pictures around like puzzle pieces, trying to find ways to tie them together. We thought about Matthew’s pictures of Mr. Gilbert as anchors in the sequence of pictures, sort of like the way his hat shop is an anchor on Larchmere. Then we filled in the gaps between them.
Matthew looked again at his pictures of Curtis. Carrying a camera, he told me, has introduced him to so many people he wouldn’t have met otherwise. Most of his portraits show strangers.
He didn’t know exactly why that was, he said. And why he didn’t photograph his more direct surroundings as much. Maybe it’s easier to see unfamiliar things with fresh eyes, he wondered.
“I’m not really, you know, walking around my backyard with a camera, because, yeah, you see it all the time,” Matthew said. “Although, after this, I have found myself doing it a little bit more.”
More information about the pictures
Matthew and I took all these pictures on Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026.
You can see who took each picture, along with some more details about the places and people in them, down below.
Thanks to CatchLight and Report for America for supporting my work as Signal Cleveland’s visual journalist. A few years back, they partnered to create a program that places photojournalists in local newsrooms throughout the country. Signal Cleveland and I joined that program last year.
- A home on one of the residential streets off Larchmere Boulevard. Credit: Matthew Chasney
- An alley between storefronts on Larchmere Boulevard. Credit: Michael Indriolo
- A Toyota Prius parked in the snow. Credit: Matthew Chasney
- Friends share breakfast at Big Al’s Diner. Credit: Matthew Chasney
- Mr. Gilbert leans on the open door to his haberdashery, Mr. Gilbert Hats. Credit: Matthew Chasney
- Curtis stops for a picture as he walks down a side street off Larchmere Boulevard. Credit: Matthew Chasney
- A trio of friends catch up over breakfast at Big Al’s Diner. They’ve been meeting there every Saturday morning for years. Credit: Matthew Chasney
- A framed picture left over in a recently closed antique store. Credit: Matthew Chasney
- A broom leaning against a wall. Credit: Matthew Chasney
- Friends share breakfast at Big Al’s Diner. Credit: Michael Indriolo
- A passerby stops for a picture as he walks down a side street off Larchmere Boulevard. Credit: Matthew Chasney
- Lucas Hershberger stops for a picture as he walks down Larchmere Boulevard. Credit: Michael Indriolo
- Trees lining an apartment building. Credit: Michael Indriolo
- Mr. Gilbert’s apron. Credit: Matthew Chasney
- Curtis stops for a picture as he walks down a side street off Larchmere Boulevard. Credit: Matthew Chasney
- Snow droops off a roof on a residential street off Larchmere Boulevard. Credit: Michael Indriolo
- Trees obscure a home on a residential street off Larchmere Boulevard. Credit: Michael Indriolo
- Mr. Gilbert holds his arms outstretched in front of his haberdashery, Mr. Gilbert Hats. Credit: Matthew Chasney
- A patron obscured by frosted glass at Big Al’s Diner. Credit: Michael Indriolo
- A passerby walking on Larchmere Boulevard. Credit: Matthew Chasney
- A dumpster with a car bumper tenuously sitting on top of it. Credit: Matthew Chasney
- Homes on a residential street off Larchmere Boulevard. Credit: Matthew Chasney
- Homes on a residential street off Larchmere Boulevard. Credit: Michael Indriolo
- Michael Indriolo. Credit: Matthew Chasney
- Matthew Chasney. Credit: Michael Indriolo