After lunch I had the first session in a class at the ICP – we’ll be rephotographing iconic New York images. This is familiar territory for me starting with Mark Klett’s rephotographic survey and Douglas Levere’s rephotography of Berenice Abbott’s 1939 book, Changing New York. Abbott’s photographs are meticulously documented – many of her most famous works were done while she was employed by the Museum of the City of New York to document the City. After an hour of getting to know each other at the ICP and a half hour discussion of where to start we went down to the Flatiron Building to re-shoot Berenice Abbott’s famous 1938 image. This worked well for me because I own a print of this image – it’s in our front hall in New York.
I didn’t realize that we would be shooting so I was packing only my walk-around camera, my Leica Monochrom and a 1959 Dual-Range 50mm Summicron lens (the perfect kit to photograph Francesca earlier in the day). I needed a much wider lens for the Flatiron shot so I ended up stitching four frames. After fussing around a bit we figured out where Abbott was shooting from – it’s a traffic island now as I’m certain it was then. I’ve included a poor jpeg of Abbott’s original for comparison.
Anyway, Francesca outside of the First Department Courthouse.
Francesca and her “Don’t mess with me, I’m a lawyer” expression.
My rephotographic effort of the Flatiron Building:
The Abbott original:
A few more:
On this day last year: 11th Avenue Project.
