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November 20, 2009 |
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Created and Maintained by: The Photoimaging Information Council |
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Columns |
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Times Square prompts images of tourists jamming the intersections of Broadway and Seventh Avenue. It is the heart of New York City where excess envelops travelers in omnipresent advertising, lights, restaurants, and a plethora of other visually disturbing scenes. Photographers have always been drawn to this place where every street corner pulses with energy. That is why Toby Old decided to make it the subject of his book Times Squared.  Undercard, Madison Square Garden, 1983, Times Squared, Toby Old, Cover, published by Chameleon Books Inc. (©2002 Toby Old) Times Squared is a collection of photographs that represent New York’s voyeuristic fare. The book is surprisingly broken up into four major parts, Times Square, Boxing, Fashion, and Disco; not the standard odd number, which represents Old’s undermining of convention. The collection is thirty years of photography that regress in years through the book from the late nineties through to the seventies.  Times Square Tattoo Convention, Roseland Ballroom, 1999 (©2002 Toby Old) The Times Square section is the first section that opens up the book. Old has a knack for seeking the visually weird, in Diane Arbus style, in strange juxtapositions. He uses many of the Time Square advertising to help set a story for the photographs. Ads with slogans like, “take me there,” or “use it wisely,” compliment the subjects walking by. Old is a master at juxtaposition; searching for the missing link amidst a sea of strangeness, like Rudolph Giuliani standing next to his wax twin, or the tattooed and pierced man with a button that reads “sit on a happy face.”  Times Square Street, 1998 (©2002 Toby Old) In Boxing, Toby Old invites the viewer into the world of the ring. Here Toby Old, like in the Times Square section, prefers to focus on action rather than static images. The heart of boxing is in movement. Boxers are shot in motion, working out, being knockout. The image of the boxer hunched over thinking even shows internal movement. He is thinking of the fight he will endure or the one he has just lost.  Gerry Cooney, Gleason’s Gym, 1981(©2002 Toby Old) Fashion showcases the anomalies of the industry. Old women in winter coats shown next to a window display of a mannequin wearing a bikini and lingerie, a heavily made up model licking a plate, an old model in a leather bustier getting ready for a shows with an animal skull as a headdress, or a model who is oblivious to the irony of her t-shirt that reads “product”. It is this type of photograph that forces the onlooker to think about what is really happening inside of the moment and at the world at large. Old wants the viewer to work to find the meaning within his work.  Alternative Fashion Show, Webster Hall, 1997 (©2002 Toby Old) The images in the Disco section require the same sort of eye to read them. This is clearly the most fun. Bodies are swinging and dancing showing off the bygone era of the discos of New York. Old manages to capture the vibrancy and uninhibited moments that transpire while dancing, the events where the subjects are utterly unaware of their surroundings. The club experience is filled with weird inconsistencies, where the old and young, conservative and liberal, and the inhibited and crazy meet.  Xenon Disco, 1978 (©2002 Toby Old) Times Squared contains ninety-nine black and white images that capture the heart and soul of New York’s diversity. Though some of the photographs were taken in other places like Las Vegas, Atlantic City, and Italy, they encompass the soul of the Big Apple and its heart, Times Square. Richard Gordon introduces the book and eloquently describes Toby Old’s work.  Times Square Street, 1997 (©2002 Toby Old)
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