James Prochnik 10/7/22 James Prochnik 10/7/22

Harvey Stein

Issue 115 of the NYC Photo Community newsletter features Harvey Stein. Stein is an NYC-based street photographer, educator, lecturer, author, and curator. His photographs have been published in 10 photo books, most recently in 'Coney Island People 50 Years' published by Schiffer Publishing (2022).

Harvey Stein is one of the quintessential photographic chroniclers of New York City, working for more than 50 years to describe the people and feel and streets of our city, from everyday businessmen and women rushing down major avenues of commerce, to off-the-beaten-path spots in NYC’s outer boroughs, to street celebrations all over the city, to a decades-long sustained gaze at our magical summertime getaway Coney Island, where New Yorkers from all over gather to dream, preen, dance, drink, swim, and relax in the sun and sand. Harvey’s view of the city is expansive and intimate - he wants all the details, all the layers, and he wants to be right in the thick of things because that’s the best place to be to allow for people like you and me who weren’t with him to join him in these distinctly NYC experiences. Looking at his work we feel transported to Stein’s side, sharing his pleasure at the great spectacle of New York City.

In Harvey Stein’s photographs, we find ourselves immersed in Stein’s New York City, which for all the joy and good energy he finds, also has plenty of moments of strangeness, grit, grime, and pain. Despite all the complex diversity in this portrayal, Stein’s NYC is also a city that’s logical and believable, and one reason I credit for that is that for much of Stein’s work over all those years, he’s using the same or similar cameras, the same or similar b&w film, and the same open and embracing perspective on the city to make his pictures. It’s a commitment to constancy that I think a lot of young photographers ought to at least consider emulating as they get started in their own long-term approach to subjects and themes. By keeping a fundamental consistency over the years, when it comes time to take a long gaze back, as Stein does in his 10th and latest photo book, Coney Island People 50 Years (Schiffer Publishing, Ltd, 2022), Stein is able to pick work from almost any decade and sequence in pictures that make perfect sense within the larger body of work.

I asked Harvey Stein if he could tell us a little more about his background and approach to photography:

*Untitled* from the book *Briefly Seen New York Street Life* (2015) © Harvey Stein

Photography takes me beyond myself yet paradoxically plunges me deeply into myself. It instructs me about the world and about myself. It gives me direction and purpose. It is my shrink, my anti-depressant, and my salvation. It scratches my creative and expressive urges. I truly believe it saved my life. After college, I floundered, with three jobs in eight years, having changed professions several times and spending two of those years in graduate school. I didn’t know which side was up; I was directionless, clueless, may I say lost and bewildered? But once I picked up the camera, I knew there were possibilities and hope. With hard work, and an energy and enthusiasm I hadn’t known before, I became engrossed and totally seduced by the medium and have been happily immersed in it now for over fifty years. I gave up an engineering education and an MBA career with its potential to earn lots of money but have never experienced a moment of regret. I always wanted to be happy, and never thought money would make me that. My happiness comes from my involvement in and commitment to photography and the ability to make images that speak to me and that make me more aware of my fellow man and of myself. In all the years of doing photography, I’ve never lost my focus and love of the medium. Once discovered, I’ve never desired to do any other kind of work. I feel that I carry the medium within me; it’s at the core of my being. I am eternally grateful for that and that I can say I feel fulfilled and satisfied with what I do.

While in college and majoring in metallurgical engineering, I realized that what I really wanted to do was create art. I subsequently became interested in fiction writing, painting and ceramics. After graduation and moving to New York City from Pennsylvania and working in advertising, I eventually realized that while loving the above disciplines, I probably wasn’t “good” enough to pursue a career in any of them. I picked up a camera while stationed in Germany in the U.S. Army. I knew I’d be a photographer someday. While working in the corporate world full time in New York from 1972 to 1979, I photographed during free times and produced my first book, Parallels: A Look at Twins in 1978. Soon afterwards, in 1979, I quit to become a freelance photographer. Photography and New York City were an irresistible combination. I loved being on the streets with the camera, meeting strangers and photographing all kinds of people and public events while exploring most areas of the city.

My subject quickly became the mosaic of the city’s daily life. The people in my work are mostly strangers who I’ve encountered during more than 50 years of photographing in New York City. They are diverse, ordinary people caught up in the turmoil of living, being, moving, and getting along. The images visually portray instants of recognition embodied in a fraction of a second; the ordinary made transcendent. Many tell a story: ambiguous, mysterious, surprising perhaps. I wish to convey a sense of life glimpsed, a sense of contingency and ephemerality.

I believe photographs can speak to us if we are open to them; they are reminders of the past. To look at a family album is to recall vanished memories or to see old friends materialize before our eyes. In making photographs, the photographer is simultaneously a witness to the instant and a recorder of its demise; this is the camera’s power. Photography’s magic is its ability to touch, inspire, sadden, and to connect to each viewer according to that person’s unique sensibility and history. In experiencing these glimpses of New York life, we may in turn become more aware and knowing of our own lives.

For me, photography is a way to learn about life, living and self. Mostly I do long-term projects that are always of personal interest. Photography is the most meaningful thing I could ever do. It is my way of saying, ‘I am here’ and my way of sharing some of my life, experiences and understanding of the world with others.

*Untitled* from the book *Harlem Street Portraits* (2013) © Harvey Stein

The fact that my focus has not wavered is either a reflection of my consistency or lack of imagination. It has been interesting to me that despite the changes in technology, the same themes and use of black/white film and analog cameras persist in my practice over all these years. I have been intrigued by photographing at Coney Island. My tenth and latest book and third about Coney, Coney Island People 50 Years was just published in September, 2022. Coney Island stays in my mind long after I’ve left, like a movie or song that I can’t seem to get out of my head. The only illusion is the easy life it seems to promise with its eternal sun, sand and ocean. It’s where you bring yourself fully into play rather than being passively manipulated. It’s a place where it’s all up to you, where you can see the world as it really is, and so know yourself as you really are—or ought to be. It has engaged my mind and eye for over a half century. I owe it a great deal. It has endlessly captivated me, tickled my fancy and helped me understand my fellow man, and has made my life richer and fuller.

The advice I would give to would be photographers is to be curious about the world around you and involved in it somehow; to work hard and consistently; to be patient, it all takes time to make successful work and to gain some exposure; to be honest with yourself and your subjects; and to work on long term projects that you can get immersed in and that you return to time and time again. -Harvey Stein September 2022

↡↡↡ More of Harvey Stein’s photography below ↡↡↡

*Untitled* from the book *Coney Island People 50 Years* (2022) © Harvey Stein

In addition to Stein’s photography, he’s also a generous and supportive member of the NYC Photo Community in his role as an NYC-based street photographer, educator, lecturer, author, and curator. Stein’s photographs have been published in 10 photo books, most recently in 'Coney Island People 50 Years' published by Schiffer Publishing (2022). Harvey Stein has helped to educate scores of NYC photography students at schools such as SVA, The New School, ICP, and many others. His photos have been published in magazines and newspapers such as The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Guardian, Der Spiegel, and many more. His pictures have also been widely exhibited at museums and galleries, including the George Eastman Museum, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, and ICP, amongst others.

Stein will be teaching an online workshop starting October 25 for the Los Angeles Center of Photography on how to get your photo book published. Interested in signing up? Click here for more information or to register for the class.

For more from Harvey Stein, please check out his website here, or follow him on Instagram here.

⇣⇣⇣ Next Profile: Sergio Purtell ⇣⇣⇣

James Prochnik 3/4/22 James Prochnik 3/4/22

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)↓ ↓ ↓

A color 'street photography' image in NYC. In the center of the composition a woman lost in thought looks down; her introspective moment flanked by walking women on either side of her, filling the frame of the image. — *New York City*, 2018 © Cat Byrnes

A group of five young women gather in a triangular grouping in front of vine covered old brick wall. — *New York City*, 2021 © Cat Byrnes

New York City, 2019 © Cat Byrnes

A color photograph, made from the roof of a Brooklyn apartment, that looks down at a group of Black Lives Matters protesters marching across the intersection half a block away. In the late day light of a summer afternoon. — *Brooklyn*, 2020 © Cat Byrnes

A photo of a yellow construction hose attached to a fire hyrdrant and propped up by a makeshift wooden collar. Although practical and construction work related, it looks like a modern art sculpture. — *New York City*, 2019 © Cat Byrnes

A color photograph of an older woman in a pink dress tends to a lush green late summer garden with four sunflowers that bloom far above her head. — *Kingston, Pennsylvania*, 2021 © Cat Byrnes

⇣⇣⇣ Next Profile: Samantha Box ⇣⇣⇣

James Prochnik 2/4/22 James Prochnik 2/4/22

Beregovich

Beregovich is a Brooklyn-based street photographer and oral historian.

Street photography continues to be a very popular genre of picture making, particularly for those who live in a city like New York where opportunities for making this kind of work are plentiful. The consequence of this popularity is an endless stream of street photos posted to social media platforms. In such a crowded space cliches are easy to spot, and a lot of the work starts to blend together. But in that often unvaried stream of images, some work still delivers. Beregovich is making that kind of work.

Maybe a person in one of Beregovich's photos is doing something mundane like waiting at a bus stop. Maybe, as they wait, a breeze blows their hair, and a memory runs through their mind of the way it felt when their mother would run her fingers through their hair.

That's the kind of moment I feel like Beregovich's best photos take us. We weren't there at the beginning, we won't be there at the end, we can't know what's really going on, but for a brief moment, we are in the middle of some stranger's life in all its strangeness and beauty and mystery.

I asked Beregovich to tell me a little about their life in photography:

“My last name is Beregovich and I don't know what my first name is yet. I think that's also representative of my photography, that I don't really know what to go by and I've noticed that a lot of my photos recently focus on an unknown individual. I'm a super privileged gay and non-binary person born in Manhattan and raised in Brooklyn my whole life and that's where I prefer to photograph nowadays.
“When I was 15, I got the iPhone 6 just in time for a vacation with my dad to Germany and Switzerland and took a ton of photos when we were there. I wasn't ever really interested in photography but the photos I took there of the lakes and mountains in the fog and small cities made me super excited to take more and that kind of excitement was new for me and I dug it big time. Soon after, I asked my parents if we had any cameras that I could use and they handed me a Nikon D60 that we've had for years. It came with 18-55mm and 55-200mm kit lenses and that thing went almost everywhere with me. That excitement kept growing and turned into a need. I got my first "serious" camera, the Nikon D750, in late 2017 and that excitement and need only got stronger.
“When I got the D750, I turned from cityscapes and portraits of my friends to street photography pretty quickly. There's really nothing like street photography. The rush is insane and it becomes close to an addiction. But I think what makes me so attracted to it is getting to see people you would never notice otherwise and places you've walked around a thousand times become completely new and I think that's pretty neat. I especially love photos that isolate one or two people. You get to learn a lot about social behavior and learn that, as predictable as some people and scenes can be, you can't really be prepared for any one scenario or encounter and have to be open to most everything. When you start to think that way, you never get bored again. And once you start thinking that everyone is just a person and no one is above or below you, more of the world opens up to you.
“I don't think there should be any standard rules for photography. That gets boring as fuck. I think it's a good idea to learn some of the rules of composition and lighting at the beginning, but once you have that foundation, you should throw it away and do whatever you want. I focused a lot on the technical side of photography at first- all the gear and techniques- and still love learning about it, but I've learned that if I stuck to those rules written by old, straight white guys all the time, I would never get to a place where I would be happy with what I would be producing. Everyone's eyes and personal experiences are different and should influence their art first.
“Outside of photography, I'm a senior at Brooklyn College studying to be an oral historian. I really do love people and my place, I think, is to be an observer. That's what street photographers and oral historians do and that's what I'm pretty comfortable with. I think oral history and photography make a great pair for a story. Deeply listening and watching are two of the most important things I think someone can learn to do and conducting oral histories has made me a more patient photographer. I'm still semi-impatient and wanna go go go all the time but much more ready to stop and look and listen.
“Right now, I'm working on my thesis project which is an oral history and photography project called Queer People in Isolation. The project focuses on intergenerational isolation experiences of queer people aged 18+. I conduct oral histories and use photo elicitation as a tool to generate memories while integrating photography as a core part of the project. After the interviews, I take film and digital portraits of the interviewees to form a cohesive collection of people as a whole. For now, because of Covid, I'm only interviewing/photographing queer people in NYC, but if anyone would like to participate or knows someone who would and would be okay with their interviews, full names, and images being put into the public domain, please DM me @55thand3rd or email beregovich.nyc@gmail.com!”

Follow Beregovich

Harvey Stein

⇣⇣⇣ Next Profile: Sergio Purtell ⇣⇣⇣

Cat Byrnes

⇣⇣⇣ Next Profile: Samantha Box ⇣⇣⇣

Beregovich

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