Legendary street photog: ‘Never a dull moment’ in the Big Apple

Hailey Eber

featured

Apr 28, 2017

The streets of New York are a constant source of inspiration for photographer Jamel Shabazz.

Born and raised in East Flatbush, Shabazz has been documenting city life for more than three decades, using everything from a cheap Instamatic camera to a high-end Canon DSLR.

“There’s never a dull moment. I can walk to the corner store, and I can capture so many photographs,” says Shabazz, 56, who still lives in Flatbush. “The energy is always there.”

Jamel ShabazzJohnny Nunez/WireImage

The son of a Naval photographer, Shabazz first started taking pictures at age 15. In the decades since, he’s captured iconic moments and juxtaposition on city streets — from a guy swinging his pit bull around on the Lower East Side to a man in a Jesus T-shirt standing next to a flier for therapy on a Tribeca corner.

His new book, “Sights in the City: New York Street Photographs” (Damiani), features some of his best-known pictures alongside dozens of previously unpublished shots. His images can also be viewed at an ongoing exhibition at the Studio Museum (StudioMuseum.org) in Harlem, “Crossing 125th,” and a new show at the United Photo Industries gallery (UnitedPhotoIndustries.com) in Brooklyn, opening May 4.

“Every photograph represents a second of my life and has a unique story,” says Shabazz.

Here are the stories behind some of the images from the new book.

1 of 5

**"A Dog Owner Showing the Strength of His Pit Bull Terrier," Lower East Side, 1980:** This "photograph represents me . . . really getting into the science of photography," says Shabazz, a dog lover who owns a pit bull himself. "My father was my instructor. He would provide me with a lot of instructions in terms of light and shutter speed. When that photograph was made, that's when I really followed his instructions, despite the fact that it was raining on that day on the Lower East Side. I had my camera out and [on the right settings], so when I saw that gentleman preparing to swing his dog, I was instantly ready."Jamal Shabazz

**"Youth and Age," Brownsville, 2010:** When it comes to shooting the annual West Indian Day parade in Brooklyn, Shabazz looks for unique vantage points. "I try to shoot it differently," he says. "Rather than getting caught up in the crowd of Eastern Parkway, I try to go around the side streets and photograph people." That's how he found this group of young women getting ready while an older man looked on. He was inspired by documentary photographer Leonard Freed, whose work he admired growing up. "He always had a lot of things going on in his photographs. [He had his] main subject, but [he] always had other things going on, objects or people that helped to bring great light to his images."Jamal Shabazz

**"Flying High," Brownsville, 1982:** "I was still pretty much learning the science of shutter speed and aperture, and came upon these young children performing these great acts on this beat-up mattress," Shabazz says. The resulting photo of parking-lot acrobatics has become one of his best-known images -- it's the cover of one of his previous books and part of the Whitney's permanent collection -- but the identity of the kids in the photo is unknown. Shabazz says that could change. " I wouldn't be surprised if any day now someone would confront me and say it's either them or a family member," he says. "That's just how my work is." Jamal Shabazz

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