How funny you are today New York
like Ginger Rogers in Swingtime
and St. Bridget’s steeple leaning a little to the left

In The mid 1950’s Frank O’Hara wrote a book called Lunch Poems. Each day he would step out of his mid-town office, walk his way to the Olivetti typewriter showroom, and bang out a poem about “the noisy splintered glare of a Manhattan noon.” For the past few years I have worked behind a desk not far from where O’Hara once sat. After I was given O’Hara’s book my lunch breaks started to get longer. Sliding out of the revolving door I found myself transformed into a hungry sailor with one hour of liberty from his ship. Some days the sidewalk offered a dramatic or romantic one act play; a pedestrian might fall, a couple might kiss . . . but most of the time I was looking at people who walked towards and away from me. The quiet gestures of strangers in daylight became significant, and these photographs became my lunch pictures.

“What most New Yorkers regard as a tolerable nuisance, photographer Gus Powell sees as a vital stage for unpredictable dramas”

“The Company of Strangers, showcases (Powell's) subtle, unassuming art... delicate patterns... like a dance, run through the work.”

“...a witty, breezy, utterly confident variation on color street work in the tradition of diCorcia, Meyerowitz, and Winogrand.”

Afterimage Review |  Photoeye.com |  View Lunch Pictures