Leon Borensztein's American Portraits: a generic backdrop, a camera, simple and spare

December 4, 2012 8:59 PM

More often than not, some of the best observers of places are those not originally from there. Leon Borensztein was born in Poland, settled in Israel and emigrated only later in life to the U.S. in 1977. But unlike de Tocqueville and other aristocratic travelers of old, he had to make ends meet and stumbled into taking commercial pictures of average, normal Americans as a fly-by-night job to pay the bills. Borensztein’s portraits—comprised in his new book, American Portraits, 1979–1989, published this month by Nazraeli Press—took place on the sidelines of commercial gigs. His tools and techniques were dictated by his means: a generic backdrop, a camera, simple and spare. -- TIME Lightbox
posted by filthy light thief (3 comments total)

These are fantastic. Can you imagine how amazing something like a high school yearbook would be if every person's photo was done like this?
posted by maxwelton at 10:06 PM on December 4, 2012

This has many of the elements of Cheap Novelties.
posted by poe at 10:39 PM on December 4, 2012

The heads of the newly wed couple look as though the shot's been set in some sort of perspective-distortion field.
posted by Phyllis Harmonic at 7:26 AM on December 5, 2012