Jamel Shabazz _ Street Photographer
Trailer for Jamel Shabazz feature documentary by Wild Style director Charlie Ahearn.
Anybody who doesn’t appreciate the spirit captured in Jamel Shabazz’s photographs doesn’t get New York. In a city that increasingly seems to squander the homegrown cultures that have defined it, "Jamel Shabazz Street Photographer", Charlie Ahearn’s rough-and-ready, almost familial documentary, pays tribute to this pavement portraitist of the late-20th century.
Mr. Shabazz’s well-recognized contribution, though not his only one, is his visual record of the 1980s, when he immortalized urban style and attitudes “before rap made them large,” as the ubiquitous Fab 5 Freddy puts it here. The film follows Mr. Shabazz on his rounds and places his photos in front of rank-and-file old-schoolers who toss off oral histories about the people (and looks) in the images. The games of “where are they now?” can turn boisterous, and sad.
The son of a naval combat photographer, Mr. Shabazz, who has also worked as a corrections officer, receives respect as a chronicler of communities, especially African-American ones, including members of the Five Percent Nation. He is seen working with his subjects to stage photographs, and the resulting pictures gain strength from the proud presentational poses and smart styles. Mr. Shabazz, affable yet intent, is shown taking fresh shots of high school students as well as veterans and dancers in street parades that neatly symbolize the pageant of life.
Mr. Ahearn may be best known for the hip-hop and graffiti film “Wild Style,” but his latest is a little closer to his humbler video efforts (though not quite as gritty as “Doin’ Time in Times Square”). “Jamel Shabazz Street Photographer” could be slicker, but it does its part in sharing in its central figure’s project of recording the living history that surrounds us.
Font: NYTimes
Nossa querida Martha Cooper fez história fotografando graffiti nos anos 70,80...
Jamel Shabazz fez o mesmo fotografando pessoas.
