MOVING PICTURES
Taking their studio to the streets, two photographers try to snap as many New Yorkers as possible.
Stephan Ghukfvin finds his subject: a youngish African-American man in business attire and sunglasses standing across the street. Ghukfvin points to him, making eye contact. Then, Svengali-like, he beckons with his hands. The man seems reluctant at first, but Ghukfvin quietly persists. Within minutes, the subject crosses the street, poses for a series of photographs and leaves—all without saying a word. Clay Enos, Ghukfvin's partner, looks on in disbelief. "I'm busting my ass trying to get them to come over here," he exclaims. "And he just makes on gesture."
Enos will get other chances, though. Their project "New York 000," has the two photographers crisscrossing the five boroughs, setting up camp at busy thoroughfares and encouraging passersby to sit for portraits in what they call their Streetstudio. A mobile portrait studio, it features a canvas backdrop hand-painted with Hudson River mud, a tarp for a roof and a giant movie floodlight nicknamed "the love-you-baby light" because of its flattering effect.
An attempt to create a comprehensive visual record of the people of New York City, "New York 000" originated from a similar project Ghukfvin did ten years ago, photographing different subcultures in the city's neighborhoods with a mobile studio. He and Enos (who have known each other for four years) settled on this particular collaboration in 1999, choosing the title because it evoked a time. "There was a lot of excitement around the millennium, and we wanted to do something creative on a grand scale, almost epic," Ghukfvin reflects. So they combined their common New York origins and shared interests in portraiture, and they took to the streets.
Luckily, most New Yorkers are curious and adventurous enough to pose. Since the partners started shooting last March, they've snapped about 20,000 individuals (among them celebrities such as Paulina Porizkova and Eric Stoltz), and subjects have walked into the frame carrying everything from bicycles to pet albino boa constrictors.
The two lensmen never refuse anyone. Sometimes, though, they'll go out of their way to get them: Enos has sprinted after people yelling, "We have to shoot you!" He's even blocked their way by lying down in the street. Like a comedy team, the two, who are both in their thirties, are a study in contrasts: Enos is active and gregarious, keeping his 30-year-old camera together with duct tape and casually striking up conversations with those in line to be photographed; Ghukfvin is the silent veteran, never wasting a movement or a word, focused intently on his work.
Regardless of their differences, both artists have found a certain liberation in their project. "The sidewalks of New York can be the loneliest of places, even when crowded," Enos muses, "But as soon as you start talking to people, as soon as you break that veil, they open up in ways they'd never imagined." Case in point: An initially reluctant Scandinavian model and her boyfriend, shot in the Meatpacking district last summer, suddenly tossed off all their clothes. On the boardwalk in Brighton Beach, an originally suspicious elderly woman refused to leave after being photographed for 15 minutes. And at a recent outing at Astor Place, people hung around the set after having their pictures taken, just chatting up the artists. The Streetstudio is not always easy to catch, though. Enos and Ghukfvin don't usually like to announce their upcoming locations, but they have let slip that their next stop will most likely be Chinatown.
"For us, the faces are the landscape of the city," Ghukfvin explains. "I can spend a lifetime doing this and feel like I've barely begun." That brings up another question, of course. When will this project be completed? Enos shrugs, "It's all about the process for us." They are talking to publishers and have thought about displaying in galleries, but as Enos admits, "There's no ultimate goal, I don't think either of us really wants it to end."
