Growing up in Coney Island, Arlene Gottfried, was witness to plenty of odd scenes. It’s no surprise, then, that her new book of gritty, black and white photographs, “Sometimes Overwhelming” ($45, powerHouse Books), charts a path through the wacky, wild and just plain weird characters that New York City attracts.
“I started taking pictures when my parents wanted me to go to college, and I didn’t really want to go,” Gottfried said. “I went and signed up for photography — I chose that class, because no matter what it was, I would be doing something rather than sitting and listening, which I had already had my fill of at Erasmus Hall.”
“This was in Borough Park. I was walking with my grandmother and I stopped to take that street photographer’s picture. I can’t believe I never had my picture taken by him, that’s what I always think when I see that photograph.”
“I started taking photographs of people I knew and people I saw on the street, and I still work the same way,” said Gottfried, who has worked as a photographer for the New York Times Magazine, Fortune and Life. “I always loved [taking pictures in] Brooklyn because of the neighborhoods, the diversity and the architecture. I like the realness to it.”
Here, Gottfried dishes on the story behind five of the book’s most arresting photographs.
“I was doing a lot of photographs in Coney Island, and I remember walking along the boardwalk and looking over and seeing that, so I took a picture. That’s usually how it went — I saw something, took one image and kept going.”
All photos: Arlene Gottfried
“I was still in school and was in a work-study program — I’m still friends with the guy who ran it — and they were making some sort of student film. I was hired to do still photographs. Isabel [Croft] was there, she was a photographer, too, and she just started jumping rope.”
“Sometimes Overwhelming” is available the powerHouse Arena (37 Main St. at Water Street in DUMBO). For information, call (866) 99-ARENA or visit www.powerhousebooks.com.
