Flushing Faces

These candid headshots of pedestrians in downtown Flushing, Queens, taken between 2017 and 2020, offer a glimpse of the diverse population on the streets of this dynamic, largely immigrant neighborhood in which I lived for nearly a decade. Unlike the subjects of prior series of candid photographs such as Walker Evans’s subway portraits or Philip Lorca Di Corcia’s “Heads” series, these pedestrians walk in unconstrained spaces and are bathed in natural light. The series also differs from earlier work in its focus on a peripheral urban neighborhood rather than a central commercial district such as Times Square in Di Corcia’s case or Chicago’s Loup in Harry Callahan’s candid close-ups of female pedestrians. The inclusiveness of the subjects and their location is echoed in the images’ central composition and exhibition in a grid, both of which emphasize the equality that prevails in the democratic space of the street.

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