Sergio Purtell
Sergio Purtell is a photographer, author of the beautiful Stanley / Barker photo book Love’s Labour, and a master printer whose Brooklyn-based photography printing business Black and White on White has printed work for museums, galleries, and a significant number of notable photographers of our time - people like Robert Adams, Larry Clark, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Jim Goldberg, Mark Steinmetz, and scores more.
Sergio Purtell is a photographer and master printer whose Brooklyn-based photography printing business Black and White on White has printed work for museums, galleries, and a wide range of notable photographers - people like Robert Adams, Larry Clark, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Jim Goldberg, and Mark Steinmetz. Sergio first came onto my radar when I saw him discussing some of the work you’ll see below in a 2015 YouTube video; a conversation between Sergio, MoMA curator Susan Kismaric, and photographer Thomas Roma. While Roma is an old-fashioned Brooklyn character and takes up a lot of oxygen in the video, it was the quieter power and conviction of Purtell’s words and work that ended up staying in my mind. In 2020 Stanley/Barker published Sergio Purtell’s gorgeous photo book Love’s Labour, which collects photos from Sergio’s summer wanderings around Europe in the late 1970s and early-to-mid 1980s; a book worth lingering over as you drift through a Dionysian world seemingly held in permanent dream-like suspension under a sensuous European sun.
Sergio’s work below, from his long-term Real project, is, as the title suggests, far from a dream-like reverie. It’s a very real, absolutely fascinating, multi-layered, deep dive into the visual beauty, spectacle, and splendor of street life in NYC’s outer boroughs. If you go to Sergio’s website, his Real project is presented in five sections, each with scores and scores of photographs. I can’t speak to Queens or the Bronx, but I’ve lived in Brooklyn for more than twenty years, and his project, viewed collectively, is by far the most comprehensive and keenly accurate photographic description of Brooklyn I’ve ever seen both visually and emotionally. These black and white pictures absolutely vacuum up all the strange and overflowing details of the borough and the people and the objects you see and find on the streets and present them back to us in a kind of crystalline, open clarity. This is street photography in encyclopedic and democratic form - nothing is elevated or singled out, it’s just all here for you to explore and wander around at your leisure. Sergio spoke to this point in that 2015 video that first caught my attention in an answer to an audience question about the open-style printing of the image:
I like to think of the prints as being generous…in the way they reveal everything that is going on, and I’m not pointing at anything, in particular, I’m just letting the viewer walk into the pictures and take their pick.
That generosity towards and trust in the viewer is a hallmark of Sergio’s approach as an artist, and it’s an honor to share his work here. I asked Sergio to tell me more about himself and his thoughts about photography:
Van Dam St and Greenpoint Ave, Hunters Point, Queens, NY © Sergio Purtell
I was born in Santiago, Chile, and lived there until 1973, when there was a coup d'etat and the democratically elected socialist president Salvador Allende was killed. Because of the outcome —Chile losing its president and its government — I became highly politicized. I was turning 18 and could become an American citizen by paternity. Understanding that my future would be compromised, I left Chile and moved permanently to the US.
While in Chile, my interest in art started when it seemed like it was the only class I truly enjoyed. I felt with art, I could think on my own, where all other subjects emphasized memorization and zero problem solving. I liked taking things apart to see how they worked and sometimes surprised myself that I could put them back together again. When I got to the US, I started taking classes in art history, figure drawing, graphic design, and architecture, but once I took a class in photography, I quickly realized that was my calling. I love photography’s ability to sustain time and capture its exacting description of life. Even now, every photograph I make is a love poem to photography, one in which I pay homage to life in all its forms.
Center Blvd and 46th Ave, Long Island City, Queens, NY © Sergio Purtell
The one thing I wish I could change about the photography world is less words, better pictures. I am sure this is going to sound harsh to many photographers, especially in the post-modernist world we live in. So much has been said about photography already, to the point where images have lost some of their meaning or importance only to be subdued by words. With the introduction of Instagram and the proliferation of images at such infinite speed, there are few clear voices out there that can cut through the noise and make a difference. One positive change has been to make the medium more inclusive— by artists, educators, curators, galleries, museums, and communities. That gives me hope.
Empty lot somewhere in Bushwick, Brooklyn, NY © Sergio Purtell
I think it would be helpful for artists to disconnect themselves from academic institutions (easy for me to say as I have degrees from RISD and YALE, but I had to pay handsomely even back then). What I mean is that higher education is out of control in terms of cost and outcome, with the percentage of people that end up as academics or working artists is relatively small compared to the amount invested in an artist's career. I would love to see apprenticeship programs or more help from the government — we need more social programs to encourage the arts through mentorship, scholarships, grants, and lower the outrageous ticket price to attend learning institutions. Artists make a huge contribution to society, perhaps not a terribly practical one, but one that gives us hope shows us beauty, and opens our eyes and minds to imagine the impossible and to reaffirm what is possible.
Empty lot somewhere in Bushwick, Brooklyn, NY © Sergio Purtell
If you were to look at my obsessive and extensive website and know anything about the history of photography, you would quickly realize that my love for photography is equally expansive. In some ways, I feel like photography was my destiny — I pay homage to it with what I do every day. I have chosen to help other photographers, and with that choice, I’ve made sacrifices that I am truly willing to make to continue supporting, elevating, and advocating this democratic medium. I am very fortunate to have a great team at the Lab — we are all artists at BWonW and spend our day collaborating with and helping other photographers. It is a pleasure and an inspiration to be around great work and the people who create it.
Atlantic Ave, Ocean Hill, Brooklyn, NY © Sergio Purtell
If I can leave behind one ounce of the legacy that Richard Benson (one of my professors at Yale) so gracefully and generously left behind, I would feel accomplished and that maybe I have passed the baton to the next generation. To other photographers, I would say that as long as you can make pictures, be content. Being in the moment, being compassionate and humble will most likely afford you solid relationships and nourish your artistic life.
Patch of woods in Bushwick, Brooklyn, NY © Sergio Purtell
With this body of work, Real, I was at a place where I thought I had outgrown wanting to photograph the world as it is, searching for beauty and a place where light and landscape meet. So I began to re-create a world in which I could take the kind of photographs I wanted to make. I tried reconstructing the parts of the world that had been discarded, abandoned, or thrown away. Ultimately I was looking for some idea of real and beauty rooted in the world we find ourselves in now.
Richmond St and Dinsmore Place, Cypress Hills, Brooklyn, NY © Sergio Purtell
I have always printed in a very open style, which was definitely influenced by my time at Yale. I remember that Richard Benson gave me a piece of material used in offset printing— the equivalent of a double 00 filter — that I would use to flash the print as a final touch to fill in any potential too-bright highlight. Also, I would split filter my prints. I can tell you that all this was incredibly tedious and time-consuming, but in the end, it would yield these beautifully open prints, with every possible midtown and a touch of black in the shadow areas and compressed highlights.
Gowanus Canal and 3rd St, Gowanus, Brooklyn, NY © Sergio Purtell
My book Love’s Labour came out in 2020, and I have been ruminating about publishing a second book — although keeping a business (BWonW.com) running during COVID has taken up most of my time and energy. For now, I post on Instagram (although I don’t post new photos as much as I should) and have an extensive website for those interested in looking.
Lee Ave and Flushing Ave, South Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY © Sergio Purtell
Lincoln Ave and 138th St, Bronx, NY © Sergio Purtell
All photographs were made ranging from 2008 to 2014 © Sergio Purtell
Sergio Purtell - Edward Mapplethorpe, 2020 (Color portrait at top of post)
You can see a plentitude of more photos by Sergio on his website here: sergiopurtell.com His book published by Stanley/Barker, Love’s Labour is currently sold out. You can follow Sergio on Instagram here: @sergio_purtell
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Tracy Dong
Tracy Dong is a Vancouver-born, Brooklyn-based photographer and visual artist whose work aims to represent the under-represented, describe the relationship between individuals and their surroundings, and reveal the extraordinary opera underlying seemingly ordinary life. In a complex and chaotic world, she finds her pictures in moments of simple emotional and intimate connection with her subjects.
Exploring Tracy Dong’s photography I find a gentle lyricism that I respond to - many moments she holds for us in her pictures are quiet, intimate, and tender. The world she is describing is closely observed but seemingly rarely disturbed by her picture-making, even when her subject, like Edward in the photo Edward Zhu for Future Blues Vintage gazes directly at her camera, and the image is staged. It all just seems like the world just as it was when she found it. Her focus is not only on quiet moments of connection - I also appreciate when she engages with the festive and wild life of the world - like her short super 8 film at the end of this feature that captures the fun and joy of NYC’s Pride celebration. Like her photos, her film puts me right at the emotional center of the moment(s).
Revival of NYC, Pride Weekend, New York City, 2021 © Tracy Dong
I asked Tracy to tell us a little about her journey in photography:
I am the daughter of a war veteran, so a lot of my father’s photos were erased to protect my family’s identity and refugee status. Most of my childhood was spent re-creating the family archival, and I was always around something with lenses, picking up on the skill as I dabbled in and out of the arena of photography throughout my life. I shot video shorts of myself at my childhood home when I was 7 or 8, created photo albums when I traveled for tennis as a teenager, tried out modeling when I was in college but was told to slim down if I wanted to continue. That experience inherently gave me the impulse that I was going to create my own photographs and I didn’t need anyone to tell me who to put in them or how to create them. I started buying film cameras and taking photos with friends for fun, but gave up before grad school was over as I saw no return on investment on film at the time and felt defeated by the emergence of “iPhone photography”. Like many recently self-proclaimed photographers, the pandemic was what made me pick it up again. It was and still is a period of me trying to process the imminent shifts going on around me, and what it was doing to my mental health. Instinctively I bought an army of cameras. It became a way to channel the emotions. I guess like what the 1968 gunshot to Warhol did for the Warhol Diaries, I just began shooting incessantly to document everything and understand what I was going through.
The act of photographing is almost like my own act of self-reconciliation. Growing up in an immigrant family, I was taught to not trust anyone and keep to myself. I think throughout my life, I missed out on understanding the importance of nurturing connection, tenderness, and human fragility. Now, these are some of the themes present in my photographs because I am, in a way, catching up with myself. Capturing the delicate aura of another person’s constructed life in front of me, or upholding communities who normally feel invisible feel beautifully visible. This has become my way to access my heart and allow myself to connect with others. Once the technicality is out of the way, to me the art comes into play when you let your higher consciousness draw you towards the subject you want to photograph and tell you what it means to you when get the photo back. It’s a completely meditative and spiritual experience to delve into and share that level of intimacy, to see another, or others, as they are fully. We forget the sacredness in being able to see, listen, and share – our hearts, our stories. Shooting on film just so happens to heighten this meditative experience with how slow and meticulous each step is, and to achieve the tenderness theme I am after. I don’t think there’s anything more satisfying than nailing the rich and decadent texture, color, and light that films brings to a photograph, while it tells a compelling story.
I get inspiration from anything – the way 6PM evening light cloaks my bedroom, heartbreak, watching my friends fall in love, a lesson I learned in therapy, an Ingmar Bergman film, a Townes Van Zandt melody. They all ignite a feeling I want to bottle and immortalize into a photograph. I seek to create an unflinching portrait the way Joan Didion executes a sentence, and chase beauty in unlikely places through street photography the way Anthony Bourdain seeks the perfect meal in third-world countries. When I’m not shooting or working my day job, I’m gathering inspiration and mentally framing potential photos, so in a way I’m never not working. I guess that is the inquisitive freedom and curse of being a photographer.
I recently started to incorporate writing into my photography, which can be risky but can add so much depth to its meaning. A photo can have endless interpretations, but the addition of writing can corner the photo into a box. Not only am I presenting a visual, but I am verbally coercing the viewer how to interpret it. There are certain projects where that makes sense, such as the photo essay I did on my father that had a deep back-story to it that only text can serve the viewer to understand. The other in which I am currently working on documents street life in recent countries I’ve traveled to. This series will be presented in photographs alone, as it is about the visceral elements of these places and feeling the rhythm and flow of daily life through its images.
Follow Tracy Dong on Instagram: @tracytdong Film Instagram: @feelingson35mm and see more of her work on her website, tracytdong.com
Photo at top of post: Self Portrait, 2020. © Tracy Dong
↓ ↓ ↓ All Photos and video in this post © Tracy Dong↓ ↓ ↓
Father Playing the Piano at Home, Vancouver, Canada, 2021 © Tracy Dong
Edward Zhu for Future Blues Vintage, San Francisco, California, 2021 © Tracy Dong
Sunset over Niagara Falls, Buffalo, New York, 2021 © Tracy Dong
Ferry to Rockaway Beach, New York, 2021 © Tracy Dong
A short film celebrating Pride 2021 in New York City © Tracy Dong
Tracy Dong is a Vancouver-born, Brooklyn-based photographer and visual artist whose work aims to represent the under-represented, describe the relationship between individuals and their surroundings, and reveal the extraordinary opera underlying seemingly ordinary life. In a complex and chaotic world, she finds her pictures in moments of simple emotional and intimate connection with her subjects.
Website: tracytdong.com Instagram: @tracytdong Film Instagram: @feelingson35mm
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Cat Byrnes
Cat Byrnes is an artist whose photographs reflect a graceful, gentle, and generous stance towards the world she inhabits and explores.
Voltaire ended his novel, Candide, with the line, “We must tend to our garden”. In these words are a suggestion that whatever crisis is going on in the world at large it’s also imperative to care for and pay attention to the good in our immediate surroundings - things like family, friends, and community. These are the flowers and food that nourish our souls and enrich our hearts. In Cat Byrnes’s photographs, I sense something of a gardener tending with care and love to her city and her people - an expansive and sometimes wild garden whose ephemeral blooms of beauty and intensity she’s able to catch with her camera and share with all of us. I asked Cat to tell me more about her work:
I create photos to communicate. Like a latent voicebox, it symphonizes with everything I make. Over the years, as my perspective changes so does my work. There are times that I wish to remain still in the harmonious confines of myself. But life demands that I contend with the chaotic and fleeting passage of time. I believe my photography seeks to bridge the juxtaposition between these two seemingly disparate yet essential parts of the human condition. Street photography challenges me to stand apart from others to capture precious, fragile moments in time that are so fleeting they pass thoughtlessly through our hands like grains of sand. I am essentially apart with my viewfinder, yet never wholly so.
The spontaneous compositions that fall right into place get me the most excited. I enjoy the process of capturing chaos unraveling in front of my eyes, it is a good reminder that you will never get exactly what you expected from a photo. Sometimes it is even better. For example, one of my favorite photos chosen for this newsletter was taken on my rooftop in Brooklyn. It was taken during the Black Lives Matter Marches in the Summer of 2020, at the peak of Covid. The mass of protestors cascaded through the city past Brooklyn and towards Manhattan. Onlookers watched their ascent with gregarious awe. Each of us stood upon our rooftops, a city of isolated archipelagos, while the protestors continued as a united current for the sake of societal change in the face of sickness and death. The composition mirrors the story perfectly.
One of my main goals is to publish a photo book and have my first solo show.
This upcoming spring I have two of my photos included in Pomegranate Press’s community group book, NOTHING LEFT BUT HEALING, a corresponding show will be held at Agony Books in Richmond, VA.
Over the last few months, I have been working on a new painting series influenced by my past experiences with hiking, foraging, and gardening. These works depict wild landscapes and environments drawn with oil pastels on unprimed canvas. The main theme represents the push-pull duality between living in the city yet longing for nature.
Cat Byrnes is a third-generation artist living in New York City. She received her BFA from Pace University in Photography and Painting with minors in Anthropology and Art History. She currently works at a film lab in Manhattan.
Follow Cat Byrnes on Instagram: @catbyrnes (photos) | @catbyrnesart (paintings).
Photo at top of post: Self portrait, New York City, 2021 © Cat Byrnes
↓ ↓ ↓ All Photos in this post © Cat Byrnes (@catbyrnes)↓ ↓ ↓
New York City, 2018 © Cat Byrnes
New York City, 2021 © Cat Byrnes
New York City, 2019 © Cat Byrnes
Brooklyn, 2020 © Cat Byrnes
New York City, 2019 © Cat Byrnes
Kingston, Pennsylvania, 2021 © Cat Byrnes