San Gennaro Festival NYC 1979
The beauty of a photograph is that it can take a slice of a time and place and fix it so we can go back in time and feel again what we felt before, and see what is now gone. In these photos, the people who were young are now old, and the old people are probably dead. It’s sobering and magical all the same. The young baby at the window is now in his mid-forties. Does he even remember the man, his grandfather perhaps, who held him by the window, delighting each other with laughter?
At the time, I was working as a photographer at Tiffany & Co. on 57th Street and 5th Avenue. I was mostly photographing stuff. Expensive stuff that as a 19 year old kid from a blue collar town in NJ I had no connection to, or desire to own any of it. The stuff seemed irrelevant to me.
But, it was a job as a photographer! I was one of the few from my graduating class at FIT the previous spring that was actually being paid to make photos.
The inner conflict I felt about the photos of stuff that I was making rubbed against all of my preferences to make photos of people doing things that I could relate to. I’ve always been more attracted to grittiness rather than glitziness. So, I resolved to do work that I felt more of a connection to.
I read in the paper that the San Gennaro Festival would be happening in Little Italy. I had never been there before. So for a week, every day after working in the studio, I’d take the subway downtown and spend a few hours, usually until 10 or 11, making photographs of the people who were there.
Looking back, I see a moment in time, people dressed in period costumes (or so it seems now), doing something simple. Going to a street fair, eating food prepared on the spot that was not generally available every day, or particularly good for you either. I see tough guys, old guys (which I am now) and lots of actual trash on the street, which you don’t see anymore. At the time that I made these photos, I hadn’t seen the movie “Mean Streets” but now when I look at these photos, I can feel the same vibe that Scorcese must have felt. Back in those days, everyone was just there, taking it all in. The crowds were less dense, the businesses seemed more mom and pop like. No one was taking selfies or looking at their devices.
For tech nerds, I was shooting with two Nikon F2’s with the Nikkor 24, 35, 85, and 180mm lenses. I shot Tri-X pushed to iso 800 and developed the film in Diafine. At the time, printing the very contrasty negatives was difficult. However scanning the negatives has revealed details I could never find using a conventional darkroom.
Read MoreAt the time, I was working as a photographer at Tiffany & Co. on 57th Street and 5th Avenue. I was mostly photographing stuff. Expensive stuff that as a 19 year old kid from a blue collar town in NJ I had no connection to, or desire to own any of it. The stuff seemed irrelevant to me.
But, it was a job as a photographer! I was one of the few from my graduating class at FIT the previous spring that was actually being paid to make photos.
The inner conflict I felt about the photos of stuff that I was making rubbed against all of my preferences to make photos of people doing things that I could relate to. I’ve always been more attracted to grittiness rather than glitziness. So, I resolved to do work that I felt more of a connection to.
I read in the paper that the San Gennaro Festival would be happening in Little Italy. I had never been there before. So for a week, every day after working in the studio, I’d take the subway downtown and spend a few hours, usually until 10 or 11, making photographs of the people who were there.
Looking back, I see a moment in time, people dressed in period costumes (or so it seems now), doing something simple. Going to a street fair, eating food prepared on the spot that was not generally available every day, or particularly good for you either. I see tough guys, old guys (which I am now) and lots of actual trash on the street, which you don’t see anymore. At the time that I made these photos, I hadn’t seen the movie “Mean Streets” but now when I look at these photos, I can feel the same vibe that Scorcese must have felt. Back in those days, everyone was just there, taking it all in. The crowds were less dense, the businesses seemed more mom and pop like. No one was taking selfies or looking at their devices.
For tech nerds, I was shooting with two Nikon F2’s with the Nikkor 24, 35, 85, and 180mm lenses. I shot Tri-X pushed to iso 800 and developed the film in Diafine. At the time, printing the very contrasty negatives was difficult. However scanning the negatives has revealed details I could never find using a conventional darkroom.
