A wise move by William Meyers to escape from Manhattan and show us what the rest of the Big Apple looks like. Any bookshop in the city probably has plenty of titles with photos of the area from Central Park down to the financial district, especially colour night-time shots of skyscrapers but take these out and many of the street photos in the book could just as easily be on that thin strip of land between the Hudson and East River.
Most of the eighty-six photos in the book are exteriors, I didn't think the few interior shots in churchs, restaurants or houses quite worked, either the folk in the shot are moving or they looked posed. The exteriors include some wonderful nightime shots of deserted streets in Brooklyn and Queens and others, in daylight, are mixture of what can be seen everyday in the streets away from Manhattan. All the photos were taken between 1990 and 2006 and nicely include thickish black frame round each.
It's a well produced book in the classic photobook style: all the photos are on the right-hand page with a single line caption on the left. A 250 screen gives the images a lift and so does the paper, a silky to the touch GardaMatt (I wish other publishers would use this for their art books)
There is life away from Manhattan and for more than twenty years Bill Meyers found plenty to catch his and our eyes.
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