New Book on The Photo League: “Walkers in the City: Jewish Street Photographers of Midcentury New York”

Via NY Jewish Week

September 27, 2023

A multi-generational group of people congregate on a building stoop on Hester Street; an African-American man leans on a lamppost; a gaggle of teenagers pile on top of each other at the beach in Coney Island; a hoard of children — in various states of undress — play with a broken mirror in the street. 

These are only a few examples of the 150 black-and-white snapshots of New York City street life in the 1930s and ’40s that appear in the new book “Walkers in the City: Jewish Street Photographers of Midcentury New York” by historian and scholar Deborah Dash Moore. The photos are the work of the New York Photo League, a group of socially conscious street photographers whose aim was to showcase the living conditions of the city’s working class, as well as spotlight their everyday lives and relationships.  (click for full article)

Dash Moore will be in conversation with Manhattan Borough Historian Robert W. Snyder at the Center for Jewish History on Thursday, Sept. 28.

Related: SONIA HANDELMAN MEYER & IDA WYMAN: TWO PIONEERING WOMEN PHOTOGRAPHERS OF THE PHOTO LEAGUE

War-scarred land: Nina Berman and Ashley Gilbertson featured in award-winning book depicting collateral damage of U.S. military at home

Via The Harvard Gazette

In her recent book and accompanying exhibition, “Devour the Land” — honored at the 2022 PhotoBook Awards — curator Makeda Best considers how photographers have responded to the U.S. military’s impact on the environment since the 1970s.

Below, the Richard L. Menschel Curator of Photography at the Harvard Art Museums walks us through a few of the images she selected. (Full post here)

A Housing Development Bordering the Starmet Superfund Site, Concord, Mass., USA” (July 3, 2016) by Nina Berman, American (b. New York, N.Y. 1960). © Nina Berman; image courtesy of Nina Berman

Just outside Walden Pond, a toxic dump

Nina Berman’s photograph was made in nearby Concord. Made at sites across the country, Berman’s series “Acknowledgment of Danger” takes its title from a waiver visitors must sign before entering the toxic grounds of a former military facility. In Concord, she photographed a new housing development in early morning light. Concord is known for its connections to the Revolutionary War and to the U.S. environmental movement. (The pictured site is six miles from Walden Pond, made famous by Henry David Thoreau’s 19th-century nature writing.) Here, Berman draws out this site’s link to modern warfare: Starmet Corp. (formerly Nuclear Metals Inc.) manufactured products from depleted uranium, primarily for armor-piercing ammunition, among other things. The company discharged toxic waste into an unlined holding basin for nearly 30 years, contaminating the soil and groundwater. In 2001, the facility was placed on the National Priorities List, an EPA registry of the nation’s most hazardous sites.

 “A Resident Talks to Workers in the Hunter’s Point Neighborhood of San Francisco, Calif., on May 5, 2017.” From the series “Bombs in Our Backyard” by Ashley Gilbertson, Australian (b. Melbourne 1978). © Ashley Gilbertson/VII; image courtesy of the artist

Story of environmental racism

It was important to me that the exhibition speak to the fact that communities of color are disproportionately impacted by this pollution and toxicity. Ashley Gilbertson made this photograph in a neighborhood in my hometown of San Francisco, called Hunter’s Point. The neighborhood was largely built on a former naval base, today a Superfund site. Growing up, I knew kids who lived here — heard them talk about their eczema and asthma. In 2017-18, Gilbertson, a contributor to the catalog, acclaimed for his photographs of conflict in the Middle East, turned his attention to the U.S., documenting pollution caused by the military for the investigative journalism nonprofit ProPublica. Gilbertson collaborated with journalist Abrahm Lustgarten (another contributor to the catalog) to produce a series of in-depth reports on the pollution from former chemical weapons test sites and the harmful ways the military has chosen to dispose of chemicals and munitions. In his larger series, Gilbertson shows how people and toxins intersect — from illness to activism to labor and daily life in a poisonous environment.

 

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Ed Kashi's Book "Abandoned Moments" Receives 2022 Prix de la Photographie Gold Medal

 

The “Prix de la Photographie, Paris” (P×3) promotes the appreciation of photography, discover emerging talent and introduce photographers from around the world to the artistic community of Paris.

Gold in Book/Monograph

If the decisive moment reflects reality in tune with the photographer’s intuition, flawlessly combining composition and timing, then the abandoned moment is the consequence of a fractional instant of surrender. This collection, made over a 40-year period by renowned photographer Ed Kashi, reveals imprecise glimpses of transitory events filled with frenetic energy - the chaos of everyday life. Embodying photography’s intrinsic power, they preserve moments that can never occur again in exactly the same time and space.

Ed Kashi is a photojournalist, filmmaker, speaker and educator dedicated to documenting the social and political issues of our times. A sensitive eye and intimate relationship to his subjects are signatures of his work. A member of VII Photo Agency, Kashi is recognized for his complex imagery and compelling rendering of the human condition. In addition to producing 9 books, he is a pioneer and innovator of multimedia, whose award-winning work has been published and exhibited worldwide.

Ed Kashi: Abandoned Moments Gallery Talk

Awards

Awards Aaron Siskind Foundation Individual Photographer's Fellowship Grant, American Photo, Applied Arts, Artivist Film Festival , Black Maria Film & Video Festival Jury's Stellar Award, Communication Arts Photography Annual, Days Japan Photojournalism Awards, Festival Photoreporter, Freddie Awards, International Photography Awards, Nathan Cummings Foundation Grant, National Endowment for the Humanities Grant, National Geographic Explorer's Grant, National Press Club Journalism Award, New York Photo Festival Awards, Open Society Institute Grant, Photo District News (PDN), Photocrati Fund, Pictures of the Year (POYi), Prix Pictet Commission, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation 2-year fellowship grant, UNICEF Photo of the Year, USA Book News National Best Books Award, Village Voice Best Photo Book, World Press Photo

BOOKS FOR THE HOLIDAYS

The gallery has a selection of photography books available for the Holidays.

Sinatra: The Photographs
Hardcover: 224 pages
Signed by Andrew Horwick: $50

"An impromptu gig with Nat King Cole, goofing around with the Rat Pack, chatting with George Harrison … the new book Sinatra: The Photographs captures the Chairman’s heydey as an entertainer, with rarely seen shots from the 1940s to the early 70s on set and in the studio."

 

Bliss:  Transformational Festivals & the Neo Hippie

By Steve Schapiro, signed by Steve Schapiro

Hardcover: 256 pages

$60

 

 

 

The Beatles: Six Days that Changed the World. February 1964

By Bill Eppridge, editor Adrianne Aurichio

Signed by Adrianne Aurichio

Hardcover: 160 pages

$29.95

 

A Time It Was: Bobby Kennedy in the Sixties

By Bill Eppridge

Hardcover: 192 pages  (out of print)

$35

 

 

LIFE The Day Kennedy Died: Fifty Years Later: LIFE Remembers the Man and the Moment

Signed by LIFE Editor Richard Stolley

Hardcover: 192 pages
$50

 

Just published by Taschen:

Steve Schapiro, Taxi Driver

You talking to me?


Blood and guns in post-Vietnam America

Taxi Driver has long been regarded as a cinematic milestone, and Robert DeNiro's portrait of a trigger-happy psychopath with a mohawk is widely believed to be one of the greatest performances ever filmed. Time magazine includes the film in its list of 100 Greatest Movies, saying: "The power of Scorsese's filmmaking grows ever more punishing with the passage of time."

Steve Schapiro—whose photographs were featured in TASCHEN's Godfather Family Album—was the special photographer on the set of Taxi Driver, capturing the film's most intense and violent moments from behind the scenes. This book—more than a film still book but a pure photo book on its own—features hundreds of unseen images selected from Schapiro's archives, painting a chilling portrait of a deranged gunman in the angry climate of the post-Vietnam era.

This edition is limited to 1,000 copies, numbered and signed by Steve Schapiro. Also available in two Art Editions of 100 copies each, with a signed and numbered original photographic print.

Steve Schapiro is a distinguished journalistic photographer whose pictures have graced the covers of Vanity Fair, Time, Sports Illustrated, Life, Look, Paris Match, and People, and are found in many museum collections. He has published four books of his work, American Edge, Schapiro's Heroes, The Godfather Family Album and Taxi Driver. In Hollywood he has worked on more than 200 motion pictures; his most famous film posters are for Midnight Cowboy, Taxi Driver, Parenthood, and The Godfather Part III.

Ordering information here.

Robert DiNiro, Taxi Driver, 1975 (Contact Sheet)

Related: JUST PUBLISHED BY TASCHEN: THE GODFATHER FAMILY ALBUM
 
             STEVE SCHAPIRO: HISTORY THROUGH THE LENS