The New York Review of Books published this photograph in their December 23, 2010 issue. The article is a review by Joyce Carol Oates of Sunset Park by Paul Auster.This was the first photograph I took in Brooklyn. It was 1986 and taken for The Times in London. Little did I know that nearly twenty-five years later I would spend so much time in Brooklyn photographing. Twenty years went by before I set foot in the place again and then only for a day. It is also the only photograph I have taken of a well-known person in Brooklyn.
Paul Auster lived in one of those brownstone streets in Park Slope that lead up to Prospect Park, where the houses have steep steps up to mahogany doors ten feet high and thick enough to stop a bullet. He worked in a tiny apartment in a block right on the park - too dull and too small for photographs, but I knew we just had time to do something in the park before it got dark.
I recently had the pleasure of reading my first Paul Auster book, after Jim lent me The New York Trilogy. In this photo Auster appears dark, brooding, unnerving--just like his writing.
ReplyDeleteBrilliant photo from the "poet of chance". Despite the ad hominem attacks from James Wood and his blind devotees, Auster is a stoic, and will never thwart his fans.
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