In case you're wondering it was made by George Etheredge. It was used in an NYT article about the artist Chuck Close.
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Edit
Haha, the mystery is solved.
pp_mcqueennone's comment showed me the the way the "photoshop" was made. The photographer took a close-up photo of a mosaic artwork in a NYC subway: archive.today • Art Underground: A First Look at the Second Avenue Subway - The New York Times.
Ninja edit: Haha x2. He didn't even do that much. I checked the photo credit and I learned he took the original subway photo. All he did to make the eye was crop that.
How it was made is far more prosaic. I edited the self-text.