(Originally
published 8/25/12)
Sometime
in the late-1970s, my younger brother and I borrowed my father’s camera with
the 110 film and embarked on a monumental photographic undertaking. We
endeavored to snap photos of a cross-section of our neighbors, the ones we
deemed memorable characters and, too, whom we deduced would not be around
forever. We were remarkably prescient on this last count.
And thus
began our not award-winning “Back-of-the Head” image series. We were not the
gutsiest of photographers. Getting caught in the act of taking pictures of
individuals we did not know well concerned us. After all, our prey might have questioned
why we were doing what we were doing. Some people are camera shy, too. Invariably,
a case could have been made that something was not kosher with our actions.
Looking
back all these years later, it would have been best to just tell them the
unvarnished truth. Explain that we were in the process of compiling a
neighborhood yearbook—a picture book to remember all by. Who would not have
wanted to be part of that?
But the
yearbook per se never materialized, and so I am left with a hodgepodge of
back-of-the-head images of an eclectic cast of characters, including Howie Goldberg
and his mother, who went for a walk every evening—rain or shine—at the exact
same time. Without fail, they ran their daily errands while chewing over the
day’s events. Mother and son were always in intimate conversation, which was special.
Oh, I did manage to snap an occasional profile picture and even a few aerial
shots from a second-floor window. These photographs will have to suffice in
remembering Howie Goldberg and friends from that very colorful snapshot in
time—when city neighborhoods had both character and characters…lots of them in
fact.
(Photos
from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)
