Capture Brooklyn

powerHouse held an exhibition, "Capture Brooklyn," as part of the NY Photo Festival last weekend. They had about fifty photographers on display, and it was pretty awesome to see. New York is a difficult place to photograph even for New Yorkers, and I think photographers who live here would understand what I mean by this, whether or not they agree. However you're instinctively drawn to photograph the place where you are in the moment you're in it, you're conscious of the fact that it might have been (or definitely has been) photographed thousands of times before. Which sometimes leads to brilliant new perspective (see the last post on Jonathan Smith) or to repetition (see Flickr). But better still it leads photographers to dig out corners that most people haven't seen, and the reason why "Capture Brooklyn" was great is because it was a collection of great photographers and also great explorers.

Here are a few highlights. I found Carol Dragon's work and then found her website: She lived in Red Hook for a year in the '80s, left without being very interested in the neighborhood, and then four years later returned and has been photographing it since. You can see her work on this on her site. She has also taken some wonderful photos in the area around Stillwell Avenue in Brighton Beach, including of the annual Polar Bear club that jumps into the (freezing) water at New Years. Here is one that I love:


And Massimo Cristaldi, an Italian photographer who does amazing night photography.
He has mostly done this in Italy but has photographed Brooklyn as well, and you can see his photos of this on his site


Nathan Kensinger, is a New York photographer who is obviously devoted to exploring all unseen things in general. His site is kind of an encylopedia of cool historic buildings in New York's outer boroughs, and also across the country. I love this one, which was taken inside of the Domino Sugar Factory...




...looking out on the bridge. Which is a reminder that every landmark has a million viewpoints, and the point of perspective is what's important. Which is more or less what Capture Brooklyn was. The exhibit (I think) ended with the festival, but the participating photographers are still listed on the site.