Every year, over nine million tourists flock to one of America's best family beach vacation spots—The Wildwoods of New Jersey. The iconic barrier island is acclaimed as much for its kitschy "Doo-wop" architecture and signage as for its famous boardwalk, ranked among the top ten most popular in the nation. The setting is captured in Xiomaro's book, Street Photography of the Wildwoods: The Other Side of Nostalgia, released on March 31, 2026.
Looking Beyond the Cliches
But the Wildwoods are more than sunshine, blue skies, and quirky motels. This five-mile strip has a character rarely explored in other books.
A proud participant at the annual Polar Bear Plunge, which raised over $250,000.
The colorful explosion of unabashed patriotism, tattooed hipsters, flamboyantly feathered mummers, dazzling custom vehicles, and provocative political T-shirts subverts the resort’s quaint 1950s trappings. Xiomaro’s prose and 160 photographs expose the tension between idealized midcentury America and contemporary culture, values, and politics.
The photographs also reveal the hidden beauty of the Wildwoods during “bad” weather, in the smallest patches of sand, and during the quiet solitude and starkness of the off-season. The beach, boardwalk, and backstreets return to the fewer than 13,000 residents, offering a welcome respite before the Wildwoods awaken again.
Rediscovering History and Memory
Street Photography of the Wildwoods comes on the heels of Xiomaro’s acclaimed Street Photography of New York City—both books take a deeper look at all-too-familiar destination sites. Together they form a throughline to his National Park Service commissions photographing and writing about sites connected to George Washington, Theodore Roosevelt, and other American icons.
From Cancer to Creativity
After overcoming prostate cancer in 2005, Xiomaro transitioned out of a career as an entertainment lawyer representing recording artists. During his recovery, he found peace in the solitude of wandering with a camera. The reinvention was commemorated by adopting his pseudonym—“Xiomaro” (pronounced “SEE-oh-MAH-ro”)—which literally means “ready for battle.”
Xiomaro is an internationally exhibited artist and curator specializing in photographing National Parks and other iconic sites to raise public awareness of their history, culture, and natural beauty. His street photography and photojournalism chronicles the candid human landscape of urban life as “future history.”
His collections commissioned by the National Park Service have been exhibited at numerous venues including Harvard University, Fraunces Tavern Museum, Long Island Museum, Morris Museum, and Fruitlands Museum. Galleries in the United States, Europe, and China have also exhibited Xiomaro’s street photography and reportage. Publications such as The New York Times, the Boston Globe, Newsday, and Fine Art Connoisseur magazine have reported on his work and he has been interviewed on CBS Eyewitness News, ABC News, and News 12. Other appearances include documentary episodes by PBS, Fox Nation, and the National Park Service.
Xiomaro is the author of Street Photography of New York City (America Through Time), Street Photography of The Wildwoods, New Jersey (America Through Time), and Weir Farm National Historic Site (Arcadia Publishing Library Editions) with a foreword by Senator Joseph Lieberman. His writing and photography reflect his work as what he calls a “residentographer,” embedding himself in the community over time to artistically document the environment and the spirit of its people. At times, he is even mistaken for a local. Xiomaro’s fluid creative identity encompasses photo ceramics, music composition and recording, and video production.
Born in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, Xiomaro began as a musician. He graduated college as a philosophy major and was Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of International Law and Politics at New York University School of Law. Several stints as a corporate litigator led to a career as an entertainment attorney and artist manager representing hip hop, dance, and pop artists.
ALL PHOTOS BY XIOMARO
