My first apartment was a 6th floor walk-up on 162nd Street in the Bronx near Yankee Stadium. Here’s a shot I took, aged 18 in 1975, out the back window towards the back of the apartments on 163rd St. Note the girl on the right is holding a stack of 45s – no doubt the girls were listening to music.
Fantastic “classic shot” !! Time works to improve some photos like this.
Thanks – and I absolutely agree. I never thought much of this image when I took it: too boring, not quite sharp enough. But with the passage of almost 40 years it’s an historic document that holds some interest it lacked originally.
Great one to post Adam. Amazing that a photo taken, perhaps quite spontaneously, can tell you so much many years later.
Thanks, yes! I often think when I look at the work of Atget or Walker Evans or any of the greats from 50 – 100 years ago that I missed the opportunity to capture the great moments and am stuck with the humdrum ordinariness of daily life today. But time passes quickly and in no time my older pictures pick up that aura of a lost historical era when people wore their hair like that and drove funny cars like this….
Hi Adam – I’ll have to brush up on my knowledge of photographers. I think capturing ‘ordinariness’ is a noble art so hope you can continue as you started.
Thanks! Over on my Facebook page (New York People Live – NYPL) I’ve been posting lots of my street photography as well as links to the work of other great photographers, both famous ones from the past and the best of the present – might be a painless way to discover some of the best photography.
thanks for that. my facebook use is a bit limited but I will try to navigate my way back in..
I really like these old photos. People seemed more authentic.
Thanks! It’s an odd effect, isn’t it? Old black & whites seem to be so much more pregnant with meaning, in a way and, yet, why should that be? I think it’s some kind of nostalgic cognitive bias that must be built into our brains.