Hot Shot

Rusty Leffel’s 245 Blocks of Broadway, NYC, USA is a photographic powerhouse. On every block along Broadway from Battery Park up through Harlem, Leffel recognizes the impulse and critical allure of street photography. And New York’s most-renowned street provides ample occasion for visual pleasure.

With this work, Leffel earns his place in street photography’s significant lineage. Artists such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Frank and Garry Winogrand shot (often literally from the hip in Winogrand’s case) on the streets, arresting the zeitgeist of an age. They captured a look, a feel and a state of being. Juxtaposing the various cultures that converged on city streets — from the society doyenne to the downtown hipster — Winogrand and others documented, through their personal filters, the people and places that constitute our environments. Their images help us understand how photography, in all its manifestations, shapes the way we perceive ourselves.

Leffel is a Kansas City artist whose interest in shooting the entirety of Broadway emerges from this rich history. Printed in a beautiful sepia tone, his compelling images convey the physical authority, humor, eccentricity and dynamism of New York.

“Herald Square Walking” is an extreme close-up of a woman walking and talking on her cell phone, seemingly oblivious to the photographer and the people around her. Shot from below, at an active angle, it’s a comment on the way we often move through a city fixated on our own central narrative. The background, though important to the image, falls a little away behind the woman’s forward movement; her cleavage dominates the shot. In “Spring Street Crosswalk,” the titular crosswalk’s white stripes run diagonally from top to bottom of the vertical print, focusing our view on the bright lines and the asphalt. Two people are caught in the crosswalk, but their presence only serves to heighten the energy of the street itself. The crosswalk becomes the dominating character in this vigorous narrative.

These works are but a handful in Leffel’s series. Elsewhere he focuses on architecture and the people who inhabit the spaces of this built environment. He understands how color — contrasts are critical in his architectural shots — can activate the relationships between buildings. “Empire State at 22nd Street” juxtaposes the elegance of the Empire State Building with the utilitarian quality of nearby apartments, whose dark balconies are silhouetted against the light and almost airy facade of the city’s landmark. The tranquil balance struck between the two structures signifies a moment of serenity in a city built to excite.

“Sidewalk Signs, Broadway at 190th Street” clarifies Leffel’s skill in using the flat picture space to its richest advantage. Here the “street” — a sidewalk with a few pedestrians — takes up only about a quarter of the shot. Dominating the photograph are overhead signs and awnings that compress the people into the image’s smallest section. Leffel suggests that the visual noise of the city, its commerce and forward momentum, can miniaturize its people. In this image, he reaches a perfect balance, showing how people and their built environments both tolerate and complement one another.

His photographs are a warm and intimate examination of an iconic yet living place.