New York City 1970 - 1977

Larry Fink made this photograph, "New York City", probably in the 1970s, when he was starting to do his social documentary photography, working with a flash, in places where rich and poor mingled. Here, we’re so close to the chest of a woman in a low cut dress that it's almost confrontational. It feels like an accident, in a way, like he was just there, a little awkward maybe, doing his job of recording the scene in a blurry flash. And it’s not just her, but all of the people behind her, too, staring, sort of lost in the dark, as if they're not really there. I wonder, what was he thinking when he took it? Was he trying to capture a moment of social tension, or was he just fascinated by the way the light caught on her skin? The light can be so cruel. You can see it in Diane Arbus’ work too - that fascination with the abject, the grotesque, the stuff that others look away from. There’s a history of that vision, that sensibility.