Joel Sternfeld is an American photographer in the documentary traditon of Walker Evans and Robert Frank. A contemporary of Philip-Lorca diCorcia, his work was pioneering in its use of colour and exploration of social issues. Among the work featured on his website are two series At the mall, New Jersery, produced in 1980.

Rush Hour, as the name suggests is a series of portraits taken during rush hours in Chicago, New York and Philadelphia. The images are shot in colour with deep shadows and seemingly minimal engagement with the people in the images, with many of the pictures being shot from the side or rear of the subject.

At the mall, New Jersey shows Sternfeld using a different approach and engaging with the subjects in the images.

What I like about Sternfeld’s work is his use of colour and whilst I think the aware/unaware approaches were used to achieve different results, personally I prefer the images in Rush Hour. The images in At the mall, New Jersey whilst intersting from a social documentary perspective, for me, lack the dynamism of the images in Rush Hour.

Sources

Joel Sternfeld. (2020). Joel Sternfeld. [online] Available at: https://www.joelsternfeld.net/artworks [Accessed 16 Feb. 2020].

Huxley-Parlour Gallery. (2020). Joel Sternfeld | Photographer’s Biography & Art Works | Huxley-Parlour Gallery. [online] Available at: https://huxleyparlour.com/artists/joel-sternfeld/ [Accessed 16 Feb. 2020].