Jamel Shabazz: Sights in the City, New York Street Photographs
Introduction by Marla Hamburg Kennedy. Interview by Cheryl Dunn.
Two decades of black-and-white New York street photography
During the summer of 1980, under the direction of his photographer father, Jamel Shabazz armed himself with a Canon AE1 SLR camera and began to photograph the landscape of his native New York City. Photographing in the streets put Shabazz right in the heart of all of the action; he carried his camera everywhere he went, from Harlem to Times Square, the Lower East Side to downtown Brooklyn, always set and at the ready. Like a fisherman seeking a fruitful catch, Shabazz ventured into locations full of life and uncertainty in hopes of capturing a unique moment. Consisting of 120 color and black-and-white photographs taken between 1985 and the 2000s, most of which have never been published, Sights in the City is the testament of Shabazz’s visual journey.
New York–based Jamel Shabazz (born 1960) is a documentary, fashion and street photographer. Since first picking up the camera nearly 40 years ago he has authored seven monographs (including the popular volume Back in the Days) and exhibited worldwide; his work is in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum, The Smithsonian and the Bronx Museum of the Arts.
Featured image is reproduced from 'Sights in the City: New York Street Photographs by Jamel Shabazz.'
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
Vogue
Miss Rosen
For Shabazz, style is more than self-expression; it is an act of resistance, a refusal to be invisible, erased, or diminished. The strength of that vision can be traced throughout his new book, Sights in the City: New York Street Photographs.
Mass Appeal
Jamie Maleszka
Shabazz has perfected capturing the everyday moments at just the right moment. Moments so specific and singular, they become universal.
Mass Appeal
Jamie Maleszka
"A visual tapestry"
The New York Review of Books Daily
Tobi Haslett
His photographs are usually the result of consent, not a furtive snapshot—so people comport themselves with a bright, willful crispness, rising to the aesthetic occasion ... In Shabazz’s work, exuberance dominates.
STATUS: Out of stock
Temporarily out of stock pending additional inventory.
FROM THE BOOK
"My biggest concern is not fashion, my biggest concern is war and where we’re going as a society. For too long, the outer has been what people judge people by, but in this day and time, there are a lot of people losing their jobs, and they can’t concern themselves with fashion and being fashionable, so my lens is more turned toward those people now. I’m often viewed as a hip-hop photographer, but I’m a social documentarian, and that’s where my heart is at. Fashion plays a role in my work, but for me it’s sort of higher-level than that. It’s really about the individual who’s in clothes that I look at—more about the inner soul than the outer."
Jameel Shabaaz interview by Kristin Anderson in Vogue
Times Square, 1982—this photograph says it all. Reproduced from Fashion Week/Black History Month staff favorite Jamel Shabazz: Sights in the City, it is one of 120 photographs that bring the streets of 1980s and 90s NYC back to life in an instant. Other photographs recall old-school 80s police vans, Flatbush boys with their boom boxes, Washington Square Park break dancers, prostitutes, pimps, block parties and the World Trade Center towers lit up at night. "At once photojournalist, portraitist, urban archivist and fashion photographer," Marla Hamburg Kennedy writes, "Jamel is a man in love with his city and his camera is his tool to freeze decisive moments in his surroundings." continue to blog
FORMAT: Hbk, 11.5 x 9.15 in. / 160 pgs / 70 color / 50 b&w. LIST PRICE: U.S. $50.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $67.5 ISBN: 9788862085229 PUBLISHER: Damiani AVAILABLE: 4/25/2017 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Active AVAILABILITY: Out of stock TERRITORY: NA LA
Jamel Shabazz: Sights in the City, New York Street Photographs
Published by Damiani. Introduction by Marla Hamburg Kennedy. Interview by Cheryl Dunn.
Two decades of black-and-white New York street photography
During the summer of 1980, under the direction of his photographer father, Jamel Shabazz armed himself with a Canon AE1 SLR camera and began to photograph the landscape of his native New York City. Photographing in the streets put Shabazz right in the heart of all of the action; he carried his camera everywhere he went, from Harlem to Times Square, the Lower East Side to downtown Brooklyn, always set and at the ready. Like a fisherman seeking a fruitful catch, Shabazz ventured into locations full of life and uncertainty in hopes of capturing a unique moment. Consisting of 120 color and black-and-white photographs taken between 1985 and the 2000s, most of which have never been published, Sights in the City is the testament of Shabazz’s visual journey.
New York–based Jamel Shabazz (born 1960) is a documentary, fashion and street photographer. Since first picking up the camera nearly 40 years ago he has authored seven monographs (including the popular volume Back in the Days) and exhibited worldwide; his work is in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum, The Smithsonian and the Bronx Museum of the Arts.
