Bøger af Alan Pakaln

È il 4 Novembre 2017 e sono appena tornato da una visita a Mulberry Street nella parte bassa di Manhattan, altrimenti conosciuta come Little Italy. Era una bella giornata autunnale, per lo più soleggiata, e un Sabato che significava che Little Italy aveva la sua giusta fetta di visitatori - acquirenti, persone che passeggiano, che mangiano e spettatori, come me. Ma io ho una missione: sono passati 46 anni da quando ho fotografato La Festa, e voglio provare lo stesso quartiere in un modo nuovo - con i miei occhi più vecchi e attraverso l'obiettivo di una fotocamera digitale. Le storie registrate sulla Festa di san Gennaro non offrono molti dettagli circa gli anni '60 e i primi anni '70 se non informazioni di base circa la sua esistenza. La Festa non era stata ancora esposta a pieno titolo ai mezzi di comunicazione e non era molto conosciuta oltre la conoscenza locale, i parenti in visita e alcuni turisti avventurosi in cerca di angoli esotici della città. Prima degli anni '60 esistono alcune fotografie e descrizioni - scene di crimini e altri resoconti storici - ma si potrebbe supporre che l'attenzione a questo festival possa essere stata limitata a causa di una società distratta dalla guerra in Vietnam, dai "figli dei fiori", dalla politica e dalle persone in rivolta. Come catturatore di attenzione, il festival non urlò ad alta voce. Questo sarebbe cominciato a cambiare nel 1974 quando, commentando le sue dimensioni, il New York Magazine definì il festival "nessun posto per i pusillanimi".

New York Shadow: Behind The Scenes, is 8 series of photographs, totaling 173. Each chapter is a story about New York City, and of course, the experience of the person taking the pictures. I could be called "an accidental photographer" because I never thought about becoming a professional, though by the mountains of prints and boxes of negatives I have, I am a photographer. Sometimes we are also what we least expect. Today's New York City appears to me denser in terms of people and vehicles (bicycles included), and faster everywhere all the time. I wonder if the staff at Bellevue Hospital today would, or could, stand still long enough to be photographed. Would they appear to be at all relaxed as in these scenes? All photographs are presented full-frame, that is, without cropping, and without alterations other than brightness and contrast adjustments for printing: Coney Island, 1965; Night from a Car Window, 1965; The Feast of San Gennaro, Little Italy, 1971; Manhattan, Washington Heights, c. 1972; Bellevue Hospital, 1982; Times Square from a Bus, 2000; NYC Outtakes, 1970 - 2009; West Side, Lower Manhattan, 2018.

It was perhaps 5:30 in the afternoon when I came upon the Feast of San Gennaro in lower Manhattan. I was living nearby at the time and would often wander the streets with my camera, a Nikkormat with Plus-x, black and white film, set at ASA 200. I realized I had little light remaining in the day with which to shoot. I saw many wonderful scenes and began taking pictures, starting at one end of the festival and finishing at the other. Some people thought I was from the press; one person asked if I was from the Village Voice - remember, this was before the festival's extreme popularity and long before everyone carried a camera in their phone! All photographs were taken in about 45 minutes, which for me was an extraordinary experience. All photographs are shown exactly as they were taken: full-frame, no manipulation. 80 black and white photographs, includes 15 of Mulberry Street taken in 2017.

In the early 1970's New York City was beginning a slide into disrepair that would peak in the late 1970's. Even as tenants had begun moving into the new World Trade Center complex, several of the boroughs were losing populations, arsonists torched buildings for the insurance, graffiti was everywhere, crime was up, and the city was broke. How this all happened is a story in itself, but one thing was clear: the city was not pretty to look at. In New York City, you could say that 1971 represented a lull between storms: the 1960's social revolutions, and the deterioration of New York City of the late 1970's. What I mostly see when I look at these photographs are the faces of those who made the festival work, faces of a different time, a different era. An era just prior to the Genovese Family, and before Rudy Giuliani interfered, before Mean Streets, and The French Connection. The Mafia was locally known, but not as famous yet, not by movie standards anyway. When I look at these faces I see acceptance, acceptance of a person's place, and of the festival's place in the community, a community that included everyone, even the Family, but not yet Giuliani, and not yet Hollywood. It was an era of its own making, one based on hard work and exhibiting what we might now call innocence (In fact, the only indication I could find as to who actually ran the festival is in one of my photographs, Luigi's Pizzeria & Heros, a sign in the window is signed, "THE COMMITTEE."). It was perhaps 5:30 in the afternoon when I came upon the Feast of San Gennaro in lower Manhattan. I was living nearby at the time and would often wander the streets with my camera, a Nikkormat with Plus-x, black and white film, set at ASA 200.