The photographs in Eric Levin’s exhibit, Unscheduled Stops were on exhibit in the McGraw Art Gallery in November

They are the work of an artist who does not have the luxury of setting out each day to make art. Husband, father, homeowner, cook, Eric is also a full-time magazine journalist who, in his 40-year career, has won awards for his writing and his photography. Always heading somewhere, Levin never leaves home without his camera. “Wherever I go,” he says, I’m always looking for ordinary reality that in some way surprises me and that some part of me identifies with.”

As the title Unscheduled Stops suggests, when Eric spots the extraordinary in the ordinary, he pulls his car over, stops what he is doing, and grabs his camera. His pictures—whether witty, strange or strangely beautiful—explore the psychological nuances of color, the order hidden within randomness and the human mark on the natural world.

Eric Levin was born in Jersey City, grew up in East Orange and West Orange, and studied journalism and photography at Boston University, where he graduated cum laude in 1971. He lives in Montclair, and is a member of the artists’ organization Studio Montclair and the Montclair Editors and Writers Society. His photographs have been exhibited at Studio Montclair, Gallery 51 in Montclair, The Aljira Center for Contemporary Art in Newark, the Pierro Gallery at the Baird Center in South Orange, the Monmouth Museum in Lincroft, the Lana Santorelli Gallery in Manhattan, the PhotoPlace Gallery in Middlebury, Vermont, the 2010 Texas National Art Exhibition and the Sohn Gallery in Stockbridge, Massachussetts, where his photograph “Downpour, West Orange, NJ, 2013” (featured in Unscheduled Stops) won first prize in the gallery’s 2014 annual exhibit.

Eric is senior editor of New Jersey Monthly, where he oversees dining coverage and does a photo blog, Plain Sight.