rEcReAtIoN tW2

Coney Island 1947

335 Linden 2011

Sid Grossman was born June 25, 1913 in New York, New York. In the year 1947 the Coney Island picture was taken for the collection, The Streets of New York. The purpose of this project, which took place between the years 1938-1958, was intended to portray the personal responses of the photographers and the subjects to the vibrant and urban life of the city. Grossman mainly focused on Harlem through this series attempting to portray a sense of energy, pace, vitality, and vulgar. The photographers including Grossman used small cameras and available light rather than a staged photograph. The photographers allowed subjects to be out of focus, allowed blur, allowed the picture to appear off kilter, and often times allowed random subject matter within the image. The objective of this series was to document the city as is rather than attempting to recreate an experience. 

During this time Grossman also co-founded the Photo League School a school supporting photography as a social and political change something Grossman fondly believed in. He taught classes in documentary photography and later in the late 1940's began taking photos of labor unions leading to an FBI investigation and the blacklisting of the Photo League as a communist front in 1947. 

Although the Photo League was sadly forced to disband Grossman is still remembered today as a pioneer of documentary photography and an inspiring teacher. Grossman ended his eventful life December 31, 1955 in his beloved city of New York, New York.

For my recreation I wanted to take the same feel of the original photograph and make it my own. While the original and my recreation have some major differences such as the lighting and framing I attempted to represent what the original did which was the personal responses of the photographers and the subjects to their surroundings. These are my people and they are my life so rather than a city and the people inside I used the people I am familiar with and a setting they were familiar with and asked them to just be themselves. Almost to pretend the camera isn't there. Eventually one of them actually unintentionally smacked another and the laughing started. This picture completely embodies who they are and perfectly represents the lives me lead. I wanted the framing to be small because this is such a vibrant image I didn't want the background getting in the way. I did very little editing because much like the original I wanted it all to be natural and portray what really happened rather than creating it on my computer.