New York Street Photography

NYC 1970’s

© Leland Bobbé

With the recent launch of my new website I re-edited my collection of street photography from NYC in the mid-1970’s. Looking at this collection of images it struck me once again how much this city has changed since then. Personally I found the old city much more exciting and edgy and wish the current NYC had a bit more of the old. This shot was taken on 8th Ave. just north of infamous 42nd street. This stretch of 8th Ave used to be called the Minnesota Strip because of all the runaways form the mid-west that ended up there as prostitutes. Shot from the hip while walking with a pre-focused 28mm lens on my Nikon FM with Tri-X film.

I am now collaborating with Julie Grahame of aCurator Magazine on a feature which will be coming out soon.

Women of Fifth Avenue – 7

© Leland Bobbé

From my street photography series “Women of Fifth Avenue” featured in aCurator magazine

New Portraits – Stormy Leather

Stormy © Leland Bobbé

This is my recent portrait of Neo-Burlesque performer Stormy Leather. We decided to go for the androgynous look that Stormy does so well. I lit this with just a beauty dish with a grid to accent her amazing bone structure. We decided to keep the styling really simple which to me really highlights the wistful, far away look that she has in this shot. My burlesque portrait of Stormy is one of the images chosen by The Museum of Sex for my upcoming 3 month exhibition there.

9 AM

9AM © Leland Bobbé

This shot was taken on a cold winter morning into a fogged up small coffee shop. I’ve always been attracted to street  photography that is somewhat non-literal and in this case I was attracted to the partially obscured face. This was actually taken on film and the yellow on the left side of the image is from a flash of light caused when the back my old Nikon FM opened up for a second. What could have been the end of the shot in my opinion actually added to it. This shot along with 2 others of mine will be appearing in a book being published by Photo District News from the NYC Photobook contest.

2010 International Aperture Awards

Snow Bench © Leland Bobbé

Three of my images have been recognized in the 2010 International Awards Competition. Snow Bench won a silver award for Landscape while Red Man and Albert Cadabra won bronze in Abstract/Illustrative and People and Portrait . This is the second straight year that three of my images have been awarded in this competition.

Red Man ©Leland Bobbé

Women of 5th Avenue Featured in The Women’s Room

© Leland Bobbé

A series of photographs from my “Women of Fifth Avenue” series was recently featured in The Women’s Room, an online community created for 35 plus freethinking, intelligent stylish women. Check out the comments.

PDN Photobook NYC Winner

Thursday © Leland Bobbé

A series of my New York City street photography was chosen by Photo District News as a winning submission in the PDN Photobook NYC Contest. All winning images will be included in an upcoming book to be published by PDN.

This particular shot was taken in Tines Square during a rainy and dreary Thursday afternoon. I particularly like the little splashes of bright color.

Women of Fifth Avenue – 6

© Leland Bobbé

From my street photography series “Women of Fifth Avenue” featured in aCurator magazine

Perle Noire

Perle Noire © Leland Bobbé

Perle Noire is the premier African American neo-burlesque performer on the scene today. Drawing from her extensive background in dance, her performances are explosive. In this portrait she his channeling Josephine Baker. I love this photo for its strength through her stance and attitude.

A quote from Perle:

“I like the fact that there is an updated form of burlesque which is the neo-burlesque scene. It’s not just striptease, it can be very political and lean more towards performance art. It’s creative and free, it’s always pushing the boundaries.”

Silver Wall

Solver Wall © Leland Bobbé

I took this shot with my iphone in Houston while attending FotoFest last March. This was a wall of a gallery we were attending and obviously the light was killer. I thought this would be a good test for my iphone and was very pleased. I especially like the mysterious figure in the bottom right corner emerging from the shadows.