“NYC never gets tiring to photograph,” he says. “If you’re out on the streets shooting enough, you’ll be constantly surprised.”

Taking part in a new group show at Greece’s Chania International Photo Festival, Rothstein has a relentless work ethic, committing to shooting the city’s streets almost daily. He finds something magical and magnetic about the urban metropolis constantly sprawling with life, energy and people.

Having captured the Big Apple since the early 1970s, Rothstein is currently most intrigued by how the pandemic has shaped his city – and its inhabitants. Considering himself an ‘urban observer’, he’s fascinated by how people interact and tries to document fleeting moments between passing pedestrians. Since Covid, he has realised how physically drawn he is to the people he’s photographing, seeking to transfer the intimacy and chaos of his photography process through the frame.

“When the original Covid lockdown happened, I had to change my style for the duration,” says Rothstein. “Getting up close to people with my wide-angle lenses wasn’t viable, and there were no people to be seen anyway. I’ve moved closer to my subjects when shooting on the streets. Sometimes I’m no more than a couple of feet away from the focus if I’m in the middle of a crowd. I want people viewing my images to feel like they’re on the streets with me.”

Returning to street photography after some experiments in urban abstracts and still lifes, Rothstein has noticed how the city’s pace has resumed post-pandemic – and how people seem happier than before.

“Despite people working from home some days a week, New York’s midtown area is still pretty crowded with workers and tourists on weekdays,” he adds. “The Soho area, where I like to shoot on weekends, is chock full of people. A few years ago, people on the streets seemed stressed, angry and distrustful. Now, it feels like they are ready to enjoy themselves again.”

But perhaps newly-reclaimed freedoms aren’t the only reason for this. Rothstein cites the safety of New York as something that he has noticed during his five-decade-long career as a street photographer.

“NYC, back in the day, was a lot grittier and scarier, though that’s what made it great for street photography,” he says. “Despite recent uptick in some crimes, it’s still light years safer than in the ’70s to ’90s. As far as shooting, the backdrop is a bit more bland, with many pharmacies, banks and nail salons dominating the urban landscape. And don’t even get me started about the Disneyfication of places like Times Square. But New York is still probably the best city for street photography, and I’m fortunate to have photographed here for so many decades.”

While the city’s infrastructure might have evolved to keep up with modern demands and changing industries, the same rules apply to Rothstein as a photographer. He has to keep his eyes peeled, pre-empting spontaneous moments of absurd interactions between passers-by and accepting whatever may come his way.

Revealing his process, he refers to the image featuring the soldiers, saying: “I was shooting for a while on a corner that had pretty heavy pedestrian traffic during lunchtime. Suddenly, I saw a group of these German soldiers coming down the avenue, and I spotted two punk-looking girls out of the corner of my eye. I waited for the moment they crossed paths, and I believe I caught the amalgamation of their styles and mix of worlds to create a truly interesting and multi-layered photo.”

As a native Brooklynite and having lived in Manhattan for many years, Rothstein knows that it’s the city’s people that keep New York so interesting. Or at least that’s what he finds most curious about his hometown.

And it’s something he’s sure he’ll never get bored of: “Even though I’m a lifelong New Yorker, I’m not jaded enough to think I’ve seen everything here. New York is always an adventure!”

Visit Jeff Rothstein’s website to follow his latest works.

A visual storyteller at heart, Jim Fiscus has pioneered a distinctive, cinematic style of photography that is capable of portraying complex narratives within a single frame. With an element of magic realism, his photographs elevate seemingly ordinary or overlooked places into extraordinary scenes full of unusual detail. Currently on view at the Georgia Museum of Art, the exhibition “Where Shadows Cross” features 13 elaborately constructed photographs that suggest stories through shadow and light. 

Specializing in conceptual advertising portraiture, Fiscus’ professional career in photography has led him to produce images for household names such as Levi’s, Nike and Samsung over the last 30 years. His artful style is even interwoven across several streaming platforms, including Showtime, HBO, Netflix and Disney, through campaigns for “Dexter,” “Kidding,” “Billions,” “Penny Dreadful,” “Tidelands,” ”Homeland” and others.

At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, when the world nearly ground to a halt and commission work slowed down, Fiscus suddenly found himself with both the time and headspace necessary to focus on personal projects. He soon began embarking on a series of road trips with a camper and a friend, and his new exhibition shares several of the single-frame stories he created along the way. 

“They’re all found locations populated with found people to illustrate a story that hopefully doesn’t really conclude for you,” he says. 

Following the gravitational pull of places that embody a special sort of strangeness, Fiscus would observe how lighting naturally changed and interacted with objects within the setting over the course of time. Once he found a location that spoke to him, he’d return during peak lighting to direct real people—often strangers he had met serendipitously—within meticulously orchestrated scenes set with props. 

“The light itself is a character, or a presence, within each of these stories, and so I’m not altering it, I’m waiting until the time when it’s beautiful,” says Fiscus. “Usually when it’s beautiful, it’s kind of dim… It’s a peculiar time of day.” 

While a few of the images were captured by a single shot, many are the result of a bit of post-production wizardry. During photo shoots, Fiscus often takes multiple shots with different poses and lighting variations to create a library of images from which he can later fuse together a completed picture. Each title card includes a date and duration of time, ranging from one minute to well over an hour, to acknowledge the specific environmental conditions and process required to achieve the final image. 

The exhibition’s title, “Where Shadows Cross,” carries multiple meanings. Because the locations are often lit with multiple sources of illumination—some visible as part of the scene and others hidden outside of the frame—shadows may criss-cross or subtly contradict each other. In addition to referencing his creative process and lighting technique, the idea of “Where Shadows Cross” also represents the connectedness between people and objects as their shadows come into contact with each other. 

In his exhibition statement, Fiscus says, “A single source of light casts parallel shadows that can also overlap or even run away from each other. Multiple separate points of illumination make the shadows cross and form patterns. In these pictures the shadows partake in a game with all other shapes. Shadows are a seminal part of the composition. These forms ground the eyes or guide it forth to another area of the frame, to other shapes. In still images they reveal motion. The anchor point in this entire series is made of shadows, which keep the balance and bond everything together.

“The crossing of shadows embodies the time spent with a person—the days it takes to make these images. In a diner or under a streetlight, you cross shadows with somebody you just met, and you are getting to know them. 

“Shadows stand for my attraction to people who live in places normally unseen. There are people left behind in the shadows against their will, but also those who chose to be there—an entire world we either avoid or experience only superficially. I choose the shadows.”  

While shadows are an integral part of every image, Fiscus also puts a considerable amount of thought into creating shapes. Every line, angle and instance of symmetry feels intentional, not unlike hitting pause on a film with a well-crafted set.

Though Fiscus begins each shoot with an initial concept and structure in place, he remains open to improvisation and lets the image shift and unfold naturally through the participation of the subjects. Narratives are intentionally left ambiguous and inconclusive, which allows for multiple interpretations and the freedom to imagine both the past and future of depicted characters. 

“I’m trying to create a framework that allows us to look at things differently,” says Fiscus.

Each scene is accompanied by a title card that shares intentions, narrative prompts and other interesting behind-the-scenes details. Several of the images also make art historical references, which provides another framework for interpretation. 

“Where Shadows Cross,” which was curated by the museum’s Parker Curator of Russian Art, Asen Kirin, will remain on view through Oct. 8. Fiscus will offer an artist talk on Sept. 7 at 5:30 p.m. The exhibition will additionally be highlighted during 90 Carlton: Autumn, a quarterly reception hosted by Friends of the Georgia Museum of Art, on Sept. 15 from 6:30–8:30 p.m.

Like what you just read? Support Flagpole by making a donation today. Every dollar you give helps fund our ongoing mission to provide Athens with quality, independent journalism.