For a span of over forty years, Brooklyn born photographer Jamel Shabazz has been documenting the vibrant interaction of New Yorkers with their neighbourhoods, creating in the process a formidable archive of the city's diverse communities. Starting at the young age of fifteen, Shabazz identified early on the core subject of his lifelong investigation: the men and women, young and old, who invest the streets of New York with a high degree of theatre and style, mixing traditions and cultures. Despite following a celebrated tradition of street photography that includes Gordon Parks, Garry Winogrand, and Lee Friedlander, to his credit, Shabazz has been one of the first photographers to realize the joyous, infectious potential of youth culture in neighbourhoods such as East New York, Cypress Hill, East Flatbush and Bed-Stuy.
Jamel Shabazz's photographs attest to the endurance of Jane Jacobs' belief that informal activities taking place in the streets contribute to public safety. Indeed, his photographs capture the "intricate ballet" of daily life in the metropolis, where everyone is both part of the audience and on display at the same time; where everyone is at once a stranger and an equal. At the core of his practice is his steadfast sense of empathy with the common man and woman, regardless their race or social status. Through his lens, everyone gets the same share of exposure, whether black, white, Native American, or Latino. His images cast an impartial gaze on everyone he meets, including inmates, or fellow correction officers he met during his twenty-year tenure at Rikers Island; dapper b-boys, or young Muslin men and women dressed in their finest.
