ABOUT THE WORK
All the images on this site are selections from my decades-long New York City photo project, ALONE TOGETHER.
INSPIRATIONS
The title ALONE TOGETHER draws from that unique paradoxical sense of city life where we often experience being "alone
together" or "together alone".
We are all, in the end, solitary in our existence. Yet in cities, especially NYC for me, there is often a voyeuristic or impressionistic sense of curious random connection (ish), or identification, or understanding, acknowledgment maybe, or relatedness as you watch it all pass by you like ships passing in the night. Sometimes sweet, sometimes scary, sometimes restless and isolating, and sometimes peaceful and connected.
My hope is that these images evoke in you what they do in me: a feeling of disparate intimacy. I hope they offer you, as they do for me, a chance to slow the city down, press pause, and linger in appreciation of candid, often surreal, and beautiful human moments. To see and feel how this human parade captures our sense of being alone and together.
GEAR
For those interested, the project is shot entirely on a Nikon D800 with a Nikon 35mm 1.4G, Sigma Art 35mm lenses, and Adobe Lightroom.
ELEMENTS OF STYLE
My style of black-and-white photography--high contrast, leaning toward the darker end of the spectrum, with deep blacks and bright highlights--has come together intuitively over the years. It just feels like New York City to me.
I enjoy enhancing the drama of simple captured moments.
Compositionally, I enjoy a floaty verite frame, off-center subjects, and canted angles--my camera is rarely level--blurred or cropped figures as if my hungry eye is rushing to glimpse a moment just before it's gone. I like to get extra high or extra low on subjects so that (combined with the 35mm lens perspective) I can position subjects between earth and sky to give a sense of place.
A touch of grain is probably nostalgia for my love of street photography from the 60's and 70's. I'm obsessed with gritty, stained sidewalks.
I am particularly drawn to isolated subjects in slightly odd situations. In modern life, everyone tries so hard to keep it together, I love it when things get a little weird, and awkward, and our insides leak out. I love it when someone catches me taking a picture of them, it's like a 4th wall break on existence, it's a powerful moment that always seems to carry through to the final image. I also have a thing for triangles.
For me, these photographs are part documentary photography, part narrative noir-ish cinema, part compassionate observation, and part obsessive voyeuristic cataloging, all with a sense of longing, passion, compassion, and presence of being.
This project is a touchstone in my relationship with NYC, humanity, and myself. I find it an incredibly challenging, emotional, and rewarding experience and I appreciate your taking the time to look at them.
Thanks for stopping by.
Ken