Coney Island Beyond the boardwalk is the title of this project. I am a documentary photographer who has spent the last dozen years working with and photographing the people that live in the housing projects in Coney Island.
I mainly like to record people in their homes and places of worship. I give each person a copy of their picture. When I started this project, I worked with film and would come on Saturday morning with a group of pictures and people would line up at the basketball court on 24 th street to see if I had their photo. Many times, a mother or a sister would say that’s my brother or my grandma and I would give them the picture. The projects are like one enormous family. Everyone knows everyone else. Even though I now work with digital I still make photos to give out . My greatest thrill is to go to someone’s apartment and see my photos hanging on the wall
I started taking pictures in the early 1990’s. I worked in Manhattan and would take the railroad every morning. It was impossible to miss all the homeless people living in the train station . I felt that I had to do something . I joined an organization called Coalition for the Homeless and began to drive a food truck one evening a week through Downtown Manhattan. I began to photograph some of the people that we were helping. The pictures were not that great so I decided to take some photography courses. Thus began my career in documentary photography . Some of the images of the homeless you featured in an online exhibit some time ago. Since then I have worked on projects about the Lubavitch Hasidic Jews in Crown Heights Brooklyn and the Coney Island community . [Official Website]
