Harlem Postcards Summer 2007

My photographs, taken in Black and white with a 35 mm camera, are a way for me to express myself. These photographs focus on architectural and structural imagery, and synthesize various elements of my surroundings and my community. I find it interesting to work with architectural structure, which allows me to apply different combinations of shape, line, texture, space and pattern to capture viewers’ attention and present the beauty of my environment. I hope to invite viewers to see their own surroundings with a different perspective and to learn to appreciate the beauty of the everyday.

I have always been interested in people’s hands as indicators of who they are and how they express themselves. So much can be learned from hands, which tend to be honest windows into what people have been through. Hands are also the tools through which we as human beings make our most simple and profound connections to each other and the world. This particular piece is a diary of sorts—a record of the people with whom I recently interacted on a beautiful spring day in Harlem (Wednesday, May 30, to be exact). A shopkeeper, a chef, a hairdresser and a security guard all held their hands out to be photographed. These images confirm the physical presences of these people and affirm the important part they play in making up the extraordinary community that is Harlem.

This photograph is a remake of Ed Ruscha’s classic 1967 Artforum ad: Ed Ruscha says Goodbye to College Joys. The updated version was staged in a Victorian townhouse located in Harlem’s historic Sugar Hill district.