NEW YORK 1988 to 2020
JANUARY 2019
AUGUST 1988
MAY 1994
SEPTEMBER 2000
MARCH 2012
OCTOBER 2017
FEBRUARY 2019
New York
My Grandmother grew up in Flatbush and she told me when she was about 5 years old her mother pointed to a horse drawn trolly in the city encouraging her to remember it because they would soon be gone. I am lucky that my first trip to New York City was in 1977 when the city still had a lot of grit to it. I was almost 14 and with a contingent of Boy Scouts touring the East Coast before attending a National Jamboree so I could not experience too much. I remember how seedy Times Square was and the general atmosphere of the city, just like a 1970’s TV cop show based in New York. I took snap shots to document my trip, which are buried somewhere at my mom’s house, but it wasn’t my time to photograph the city yet.
In 1988 I made my first trip to New York to photograph, this time with a Leica and Nikon FM2. I went in early August because my primary goal was to see the Garry Winogrand’s “Figments from the Real World” at MoMA before it closed. The exhibition was amazing and finally being able to walk the streets of New York photographing was so exhilarating. By this time, I had graduated ASU and I knew about the iconic photographers who had photographed those streets before me, especially Winogrand. On the trip I stayed with a friend on Long Island and commuted in. I documented as much as I could, Brooklyn Bridge, Wall Street, Coney Island, a Yankees game, a Mets game, I went all over the city and I learned what humidity was.
I have made it back to New York at least a dozen times since. My process for photographing there has remained similar but the last ten years I have predominantly used digital cameras. I know Winogrand hated the term “Street Photographer”, and so many people today label images “street photography” which are not, but when I am photographing New York I am Street Photographer.
With my New York body of work, I focused on capturing people interacting with one another, intentionally or just having to be in proximity of one another. The images are obviously documenting the period, but I also see them documenting our society and how people fit in to that society; or sometimes how they don’t fit in. With New York I am always fascinated with what has changed and what has not, it is constantly evolving just maybe faster than the rest of the world.
All images © 1988 -2020 WILLIAM KARL VALENTINE