Grit from New York

Street photography is in vogue again, with dozens of photographers roaming the streets channeling their inner Bresson. It’s not necessarily a bad trend and I don’t wish to condemn it, I’ve dabbled with it a bit myself, but have yet to produce anything worth showing.

Anyway, the renewed interest in the topic has led me to take a look at some of the greats over the last half century. One of them was Helen Levitt, who lived and worked most of her life in New York. I had vaguely heard of her, but was unfamiliar with the details of her work.

Levitt was a contemporary of Henri Cartier Bresson, who was born (and died) five years ahead of her. Both were known for their street photographs; Levitt in New York and Bresson basically everywhere.  I found a copy of one of her books, Slide Show, the Color Photographs of Helen Levitt, which was published around 2005. The photographs were taken over a 35-year period, from the late 1950s to the early 1990s, so it’s fair to say she knows her subject.

After thumbing through the images, a few thoughts occurred to me: they are primarily gritty images of the streets of New York which appear dated by the fashion and cars of the era. These are images of people who live and work in the streets of New York. In many cases, the streets are their playground, their theater to the world. They are not wealthy people; these images are about as far from the glitz of lower Manhattan that anyone could find. Her work captures everything their lives pass through: work, play, entertainment, and the humdrum of daily life.

At force glance, the images show only the chaos of the streets, with objects jutting into the frame as if by accident. The images appear to be taken on the move and are not generally in complete focus. Upon further review, their is an order to the chaos. The lack of sharpness adds to the grittiness and general attitude of the photos.

These are tough people and the images show how they interact with each other — or in other cases, how they fail to interact. She captures humor, pain, fear, entertainment, and boredom. While rough, the images imply a certain compassion for her subjects. The images portray a wide range of content: stickball in the streets, a worker pushing a rack of clothes, a woman with children crowded into a payphone, a street mechanic working on a dying car, dogs, grit and more humor. These are color photographs, replacing earlier black and white ones that had been stolen in a burglary. The images, without a doubt, have earned her a spot in the city’s rich photographic history.