Meryl Meisler’s New York: A Stunning Photo Journey from Disco to the Deuce
Origins and Creativity
“I started doing photography at the age of seven. I received a camera from my parents for my birthday. That’s when I started and I took pictures of my little brother, my friends, you know, my parents, the dog, trips.”
“And so that’s when I started photography. And then it was something I did through my teens, you know, special events and school trips and parties. And then when I was in graduate school, I took my first photography class.”
“You know, my dad, every important family occasion, it was photographed. And, and he did it well. Oh, he did it really well. And it was something like, you know, growing up with a family of dancers or singers that he did it with active purpose and joy. And, and then when I saw the work of Jacques-Henri Lartigue… what in my first semester taking photography, and he photographed as a child, his, his French family and friends, just having fun. That inspired me to, to capture joy, and also photograph the people I knew and love my whole life.”
Ken and Meryl with Mitch in His Playpen, N. Massapequa, NY, 1958, Photo: Jack Meisler
The Journey and Process
“I have returned to film. I’m actually one of the first people who was trained on digital photography when they first invented Adobe Photoshop in 1990, I was actually invited because I was, before that I was hand painting on my photographs to do things and I was invited to be one of the first artists to learn. And I was using digital photography a long time.
But returning in this long story of life, when I started showing my actual prints, I realized how beautiful they were. And, and my gallery, Steven Kasher Gallery at the time, only wanted to show my, you know, my black and white work, because it was more sellable. But I also thought it was more beautiful.”
A&W Carhop, North of San Francisco, California, August 1979
“I chose to return to using my medium format film camera for photographing again, I have a darkroom, I relearned, I went back, I went back to live of course from a university in New York City, and took introduction to photography again to learn how to work in the darkroom.”
“I wanted to print, I was having a show about Lower, the Lower East Side, in New York, and I wanted to print that work as gelatin, gelatin silver prints. Because to me, in person, they’re not, to look at something on the screen, printed from a computer looks fine. But seeing it side by side is like diamonds and rhinestones, silk, silk and polyester to me.
And they’re more precious. But also using film and the camera slows me down. It makes me really be more choosy.
“Not even the interest. It’s not even the just how it reproduces.
But the action, and the intention, you so makes you be so much more thoughtful. You don’t have unlimited, blah, blah, blah, 12 exposures on a roll. You think about it much more.
And it takes time to change it. And you miss shots. And you might say, it’s very, it’s, it’s more, it’s more demanding.
But I think it’s more, it’s almost like probably a meditation of sorts.”
Man in a 3 Piece Suit Dancing Within the Circle at a Wedding, Rockville Centre, NY, March 1976
“Having a concept helps because it’s like saying you’re cooking a meal. You know, the kitchen’s full of stuff, but having kind of a plan for your dinner party helps what you want, you know, whether it’s vegetarian or spicy. So there’s a theme.”
“But I’m photographing nightlife again.
And there’s still excitement going on. It’s a lot. It’s in the editing and the retrospect.
But of course, in the 70s was when this new format exploded. And it’s still legendary. It’s like being in the jazz is still is great music, but being in the birth of jazz.
So it was happening. So it was it was exploding.”
“We have common things, common things that continue from generation to generation. I guess what I would look for in people, because you can’t, as Arbus says, you can’t photograph everything. I’m attracted to people, whether it’s on the streets, in the clubs or the expressing confidence and joy.
People just being themselves and throwing themselves into it. They have a magnetism that I like to hold on. Yeah.”
The Rockettes in Syncopation, Radio City Music Hall, NY, NY, April 1978
Woman with Cigar at a Wedding, The Huntington Town House, Huntington, NY, April 1977
“I’d like my next book to be Nightlife from the experience 45 years ago and what I’m seeing now, and how they, and putting them together, I think would be fascinating”
Streetwalker
“Okay, so Streetwalker is, has work dating, it, I love that the publisher liked my idea of putting some of my very earliest photographs from age seven, and some of the photographs of my father, or frame it, because it’s such an influence, and it’s such a continuation of the same eye on life, and includes photographs that, from other cities that I, that, you know, outside of New York, like California, Las Vegas, Nevada, Florida, some other places, or it’s in the United States.
They’re all in the United States. It’s all black and white. So there’s a bigger array of image imagery, spiced in with some, I’d say, some of my classics.
All my books before this one have sold out already. My previous editions of 1500 copies each are sold out, so you can’t get them. And this one, some of the really lucky and iconic images are in there.
But there’s also, and I don’t, I wonder if the publisher realized, because it’s Italian, there’s also some recent photographs, but some nightlife ones that are in there as well. And you can’t tell, you’d think it’s the same. And I like that, there’s, like I said, there’s nightlife in there, because it is street style.”
Shawnna Brook’s Final Touch, House of Yes, Bushwick, Brooklyn, NY, May 2022
“It’s my newest. I will say it is the best, most beautifully printed.
And it will be the rarest because it’s only 650 copies were made in a moment to print it. So it’s the rarest of them. And, and so I’m not going to say which of my monographs I like best. I’m extremely proud of every book.”
“Yeah. It was, it was, I wanted them out there in the world, but not just, not cheaply, just out there in a beautiful format that, that put together. I mean, how about a photograph is like a word or a sentence and it’s a brilliant word or smart sentence, but you put it together and become a collection becomes a novel or a biography.”
Bubble Gum Roller Skater, Central Park, NY, NY, April 1979
Fast Dancing at the COYOTE Hookers Masquerade Ball (with Charles Gatewood), NY, NY, February 1977
Identity
“America is certainly at a point right right now which is frightening and going backwards. Yet America, like many other countries, is diverse. We’re not just one thing. I’m not just one person either. I mean, I am one person, but not just one. I’m not just LGBTQ. I’m not just female. I’m not just Jewish. I’m not just a baby boomer, ( a baby born during a certain time period), I’m not, just middle-class, I’m not just any of these things. All these things are influences that change, influence how you see and how you interact with the world and how you find yourself and your place in history.”
Ring Toss at the Lower East Side Festival, NY, NY, June 1978
Sipping Sweets with My Sweetheart Patricia Jean O’Brien, San Francisco, California, August 1979
“I try to be open minded to different people or I can be different from the generation before me, my parents and their friends, but I appreciate what they have and what they taught me and how they’ve influenced me. So the United States is a very big, crazy country, but there’s this place for all and the world. There’s a place for all of us. as long as you don’t hurt other people. There’s a place for all of us at the table. I hope.”
“Good work stands the test of time, especially in, in, in the medium of photography. it doesn’t get dated. It’s like, it gets like a fine wine that gets better and more interesting. That we all have different paces that we perceive with our lives. And to hang in there, because your health and well being come first. And And that, yes, editing is hard. A lot of it’s in the editing. Not editing and changing it, but choosing and contextualizing it. And keep on doing it because it gives you a sense of purpose.”
https://www.merylmeisler.com/books/street-walker