For twenty years, Stephen Shames has been taking pictures of children and adolescents in one of New York’s most stigmatized neighborhoods, The Bronx. The first pictures were commissioned in 1977 by Look magazine. Little did Shames realize then that he would become so involved with the young population living above 125th street that he would continue to return for two decades, capturing fragments of life on these neglected city streets. Through his pictures, Shames takes readers inside the crack cocaine epidemic that devastated their community and includes a powerful first person narrative by survivor Martin Dones, one of the young men Shames followed. The series is now being featured in one of the world’s first electronic art books, Bronx Boys, published by Foto Evidence who uses photography to draw attention to human rights violations, injustice, oppression and assaults on sovereignty or human dignity wherever they may occur.
Jonas Cuénin
Bronx Boys, chez Foto Evidence
265 pages, 20$
