This is a couple for whom even the most commonplace subjects are riddled with danger; words catch in their throats like razor blades.

Mr. Mundy excels at atmospheric effects, using weather changes, like the clearing squall that foils the lighthouse, to dramatize commonplace subjects.

A "New York in the 1940's" component to this two-decade overview underscores the dual impact of these pictures, which consistently weave their commonplace subjects into esthetically gripping compositions.

He is especially remembered for his "serranillas", which are small poems that focus on commonplace subjects.

We were at dinner and had been discussing some commonplace subject, from which, by one of the freaks of association, the conversation veered and touched on classical dancing.

Cartier-Bresson had a gift for catching everyday life in graceful, seemingly transparent flux; Evans had a way of being sparingly, frontally direct with his commonplace subjects.

At Barbara Toll Fine Arts, nine large, vibrant studio photographs of commonplace subjects are gathered under the title "Object Portraits."

They differed, however, on the proper subject of literature; Joyce thought writers should focus on commonplace subjects and make them extraordinary, while Barnes was always drawn to the unusual, even the grotesque.

It is difficult to precisely date many of Propertius' poems, but they chronicle the kind of declarations, passions, jealousies, quarrels, and lamentations that were commonplace subjects among the Latin elegists.

And no matter how commonplace the subject - a wedding or a sidewalk sale of teddy bears - the effect is otherworldly.