Hedonistic photographs of 1970s America ❤️🔥 See more here: Image: Mitch Epstein
, which documents American cities – New York, Los Angeles and New Orleans – captures more than the socio-political idiosyncrasies of urban life in the mid-1970s. Although primarily concerned with form, Epstein subtly evokes narratives beyond each carefully constructed picture frame: a fashionable young woman stands in a telephone box, a crowd of pedestrians gesture towards the sky with gusto. “I understood from the beginning that the photograph is not the thing you are photographing itself.
Whether homeless or merely taking a nap, the sheer contrast in scale between the lone, sleeping man and the looming skyscrapers serve as a metaphor for the rising economic disparity in New York at that time, coinciding with the acceleration of Wall Street, neoliberal policies and urban renewal that irreversibly transformed the identity of the city leading up to the 1980s.
Although Epstein regards the democratisation of photography through smart phones as a positive thing, he remains sceptical about what it means for the medium and its future. ”So much work today is derivative. You need to be informed and have a critical eye to understand what makes a strong photograph.
Perhaps more profoundly, his works recall a bygone era and sensibility we have lost to the rampant rise of technology over the past half a century.