I wanted to look at Jeff Mermelstein’s work as it seems to focus mostly on people doing everyday acts and living normal lives, and this is what I wanted to highlight in my photo shoot.  Jeff Mermelstein was born in 1957 in New Jersey, and is perhaps most known for his detailed photographical documentation of the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center and their aftermath. However he also has extensive experience in ‘everyday life’ street photography, capturing some of the strange and interesting things people do on a regular basis. Mermelstein studied at Rutgers College and the International Center of Photography and went on to have images printed in publications such as LIFE, The New Yorker, and The New York Times Magazine.

Mermelstein now lives in New York City and this is where most of his street photographs come from. Due to the busy, rushing and cramped streets of New York, it provides him with a lot of opportunity to get interesting pictures. He has also taught at the International Center of Photography in New York since 1988 and has released 4 books over the course of his career(“SideWalk”-1999, “Side walk: Per le strade di New York”-1999, “No Title Here”-2001, “Twirl×Run”-2009). For my Practical photo shoot I will be trying to use some of the techniques used in Mermelstein’s work, and try to imitate elements of his photography into my own.

One of the images that stuck out to me was this image below, as it has multiple ‘layers’; What I mean by this is that by using a shallow focus, Mermelstein has created multiple areas of focus. As you can see, the most obvious thing that immediately stands out is the reflection in the woman’s glasses, with the sharp reflections of the buildings across the street, however, in using this depth of field, he also has the people in the background of the shot in focus, making the city seem so busy at ground level, but the reflection in the glasses make it seem much more tranquil and quiet in comparison to the bustling crowd behind.