Jill Freedman

The photo above is from Jill Freedman's Street Cops, a book that still reminds me of the tattered city I loved and grew up in. The strength and vision of its photographs hold up remarkably well to this day, regardless of the fact that B&W documentary* long fell out of style.

New York is an historical, as well as geographical entity. The one I knew no longer exists, but echoes of its past can be found if one only knows where to look. Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York was one god awful movie- but the very end where it shows NYC at a distance, digitally "evolving" through the ages, was almost worth the price of admission.

Jill Freedman took photos from the heart, and they connected in like manner. One of my major inspirations back in the seventies, it's good to see her back, and hopefully getting her just due...

*Funny how the B&W style of the early seventies has been dead in the water for decades, while the current (color) aesthetic that immediately replaced it (in the mid to latter seventies) has changed little (save for technically)- and is still in vogue!