The NYC Landscape

 Photo: © Rob Stephenson

If you're a photographer in NYC, you're a street photographer- unless you got a studio and shoot portraits. What's that... landscape? How many shots of the skyline can one possibly take? 

Obvious questions lead to obvious answers. And deciding what to shoot (and doing it well- the tricky part) is a problem that besets every photographer, especially in an era when anything and everything seems to have been done ad infinitum... But not everyone goes the usual route, assumes the usual role and makes the usual contribution. Brian Rose has presented a more diverse NYC, he has wondered the geographical limits of the five boroughs in search of a more diversified landscape shaped and influenced by its diverse population. Rob Stephenson is also a landscape photographer, defined by the mundane, repetitive and overlooked commonalities that saturate New York's outer boroughs- neighborhoods and communities that don't look anything like Manhattan.

The four boroughs adjacent to Manhattan are anything but scenic (Manhattan itself is hardly... 'beautiful'). NYC is built for expedience and practicality, it sure ain't Paris, not even London, which is at least quaint in parts. Some of it is downright ugly, most of it, just plain forgettable, from the poorest of working class neighborhoods, to its more well to do environs. 

Mr. Stephenson makes the most of these unremarkably ordinary of landscapes with a series of very memorable typologies, memorable for their remarkably diverse feature set within a uniformity of presentation. His Dead End typology features the aforementioned signposts in a variety of industrial, residential and more 'pastoral' settings. The sheer variety and uniqueness of settings is more than I could have possibly imagined. And his Split series is an absolute joy- something I would have never, ever contemplated saying about anything to do twin homes! These banal and usually (intentionally?) overlooked residences pepper the real estate landscape of NY; the very thought of photographing them seems preposterous, laughable at best... who the hell would want to photograph something so overwhelmingly boring and aesthetically dismissible!?

And yet, these home portraits of fraternal, if not identical, twins are absolutely fascinating!  I would have never in my life thought these architectural nonentities could be so endlessly intriguing, so curiously captivating. The not quite mirror images, the minute details that entrance and delight! But that's what good photography and photographers do- reveal the mystery and uniqueness of that which we overlook and undervalue... Can't wait for the book!

 Photo: © Rob Stephenson