Zoological Society New York Gallery
New York, US 2007
® Claudio Carletti
® Linda Wolf
® Nadine Wallack
There’s no place on earth like New York City. Its sights and sounds are brimming with excitement. There’s Coney Island with its rides and beach full of colorful characters with multi-families spread on blankets, and vendors selling everything from peacock feathers to jewelry and ice cream. The Bronx Zoo, where exotic animals can be viewed by city dwellers who’ll never leave the sidewalks of NY. And of course, sprawling Central Park with its varied terrain evoked different moods and presented new photographic challenges. Also, traveling the subways and buses offered unique portrait opportunities. There were fashionable ladies of a certain age, mothers with babies, and sleepy commuters at days end. Since I was born and raised in Brooklyn, but moved out more than 30 years ago, taking Ernesto’s workshop showed me what a foreigner I’d become. It’s a very different place than the ethnic enclave of my childhood. I discovered neighborhoods that are now a microcosm of the 21st century ethnic mix. Ernesto helped me look beyond the usual; on how to position myself and select subject matter and how to evaluate and edit my work. Using the sophisticated language of seeing has greatly improved my work. Ten days was all too brief a time to explore what this city has to offer. I can see why New York City is a magnet for photographers—past and present. It’s a city that keeps reinventing itself. Nadine Wallack
® Tom Price
The Ernesto’s New York Workshop changed my perspective on subject matter. I had been photographing the behind-the-scenes activities for several years of local theatrical productions. While I had “worn-out” on that I had expected New York to reinforce people oriented photographs. As a joke I brought with me some photographs of bricks and stones that I had been playing with in the backyard. However, the workshop liked the bricks and stones and Ernesto kept prompting me to take “landscapes”. While initially I tried to focus on people, I began to realize that my landscape photographs were more interesting. So now while I continue to photograph the evolving structures of my bricks and stones, I also take “walks” as we did in New York to photograph small landscapes of what we as people create in the world around us. Tom Price
® Tristan Lark
I wanted to take the New York workshop as a challenge for myself as I have spent many years trying to photograph the streets of London with mixed results. The streets of New York seemed the perfect place for me. It was great not to have a set agenda of what to photograph. We visited various zoos and aquariums, places I would not have thought to photograph in fact places I had previously shied away from. Soon I came to see had all sorts of possibilities, with Ernesto’s guidance and passion I was inspired to look differently into the goldfish bowl of city life and came away with more than I hoped to gain. Tristan Lark
® Vincenzo Dellascala
The workshop has been surely a beautiful experience. I already knew New York, city that I love, but going around it with a camera around my neck with the intent of capturing interesting images has been different, funny and exciting. The reason being that New York offers so much and this is true also from a photographic perspective; one thousand cues, new faces, so much music, lights and shadows of a cosmopolitan and fascinating city. I love photography and find very stimulating to have the opportunities to measure up myself with other photographers; it helps you grow. Ernesto has been a good reference point; I like his work and he has taught me so much about editing. I think that our paths will cross again. Vincenzo della Scala
