The Streets Where I Live

I was an editorial photographer for 25 years until MS forced an end to my career, and my income. I moved into a heavily subsidized low-rent unit – in a Chelsea apartment building with six-thousand-dollar rentals and multi-million-dollar condominiums. Within just a handful of years my small neighborhood has become the unlikely nexus of vast towering housing projects; designer-built condominiums; dozens of elite art galleries; several affordable housing residencies; five-star restaurants, seedy diners and run down corner stores; a strong gay and trans community – and one of the city’s most popular, and populous, tourist destinations. The incongruity is palpable. The sight of these disparate crowds on my streets is dizzying. I want to know if my fellow residents and visitors experience the same lack of a cohesive community as me. To find my subjects I walk the streets and frequent my local venues, subway lines and cafes, striking up conversations and listening to how people speak about themselves and their surroundings. I work with a vintage medium format Mamiya, as it forces a slower, more intimate engagement than modern cameras. My subjects are drawn to my anachronistic process – it garners their curiosity, patience, and a sense of trust in what I do. I do not consider myself to be the only author the the final image, my process is embedded in collaboration with my subjects. I aim not to manipulate their frames of being in any way -- I am simply the story teller.