I guess there’s no better time to post old winter photos than during the summer hellfest we’re currently living in, but there’s an actual timeliness reason, too:
Back in 2009, a blizzard hit New York and I took photos of people balling it up in Times Square. The Flickr blog spotlighted the photos and since then, they’ve been my most requested-for reprints. I received quite a few messages from Germans, especially civic organizations interested in how the then-new Times Square pedestrian-walkways were working out.
At least one non-civic-group liked the photos: STORE Contemporary, a Dresden art gallery, emailed me to ask if they could use the photos in an exhibition. I said, ‘Sure, that sounds fun,’ and then didn’t hear back for about two years.
Well, my international debut is finally here. From July 19 to September 7, STORE (on 14 Pulsnitzer St.), my photos will be featured in an exhibit titled, “Dan Nuygen [sic…er, close enough] & Doug Kim: Snowball fight on main street”.
From Google Translate:
The photographer Doug Kim and Dan Nuygen (both USA) show images of these legendary snowball fight in Times Square in New York City 2009th Of the recent global turmoil images, and a worldwide flashmobs Occupy active movement they did in this little moment. Even before social media enhanced mass events and political actions to habit images of media culture, these were spontaneous rioting led to photographic recordings with unrivaled symbolic effect. (The summer exhibition is the series How the f *** did I end up here? )
I prefer it in the original German, though:
Die Fotografen Doug Kim und Dan Nuygen (beide USA) zeigen Bilder dieser legendären Schneeballschlacht am Timesquare in New York City 2009. Von den jüngsten Bildern globalen Aufruhrs, flashmobs und einer weltweit aktiven Occupy-Bewegung ahnten sie in diesem Moment wenig. Noch bevor social media verstärkte Massenveranstaltungen und politische Aktionen zur Gewohnheitsbildern der Medienkultur wurden, führte diese spontane Zusammenrottung zu photografischen Aufzeichnungen mit konkurrenzlos symbolhafte Wirkung.
So if you happen to be in Dresden during the summer…and for some reason, want to see photos of snow…check out STORE Contemporary. I don’t actually get to go to Dresden, though. Through the magic of the Internet, though, hopefully I’ll get to see what the exhibit looks like.
…
I had to go back and find the original files for STORE, so I took the opportunity to finally edit through the entire batch I took that night in 2009. Back then, I wasn’t skilled at using the camera controls so most of the shots weren’t of much use. But I was surprised to find a lot of interesting shots that I had apparently overlooked, some of them better than the ones I published 3 years ago.
I uploaded them to Flickr today for archival purposes. They brought back a lot of good memories that night, especially since our recent winters have been weak in comparison:
