Julie Blattberg

An aesthetic descendant of Aaron Siskind and André Kertész, my work can be compared with the New Objectivists, but from the perspective of a female photographer in New York City at the turn of another century. A personal reverence for an age gone by brings a particular sensitivity to my signature graphic style: classic compositions and vintage tableaux.

One hundred years ago—when men wore hats and ladies wore gloves—people worked with their hands to sew, build, and craft; the materials were pure: designs in glass, steel, stone, and wood. My photographs respectfully capture remnants of this era, before they are gone.

I dowse for the walls, streets, and storefronts that my great-grandparents knew, and immortalize the time-tracing shadows that have dappled our views for generations, and seek out objects—hidden in plain sight—that tell the stories of people long gone, and places used to be.

At the boundary where industry and culture meet the iconic and prosaic, my images speak with a vocabulary of fire escapes and shadows, water tanks and cloth-bound books, neon signs and tailfins.