Gotham Storyteller : The Street Photography of Angela Ambrosini
Her work impresses. She is, what you might call, a street warrior – her spear of determination (as we soon discover) embedded in her art. Her eyes mirror her thoughtfulness and bounce back at us from her photographs.
Copyright ⓒ Angela Ambrosini
“I remember the day I photographed this subject,” Street photographer Angela Ambrosini tells me. “I followed her for a while in the cold and rain on Fifth Ave in New York City. She just kept roaming the block, past expensive designer stores, chain smoking to keep warm.”
The woman, wrapped in her blanket-cum-home wandering past the chic retail of NYC, looks indifferently distant, the world around no longer seems to resonate and she could just as easily be on a distant planet. She has no one and nothing. Only Angela Ambrosini is interested enough in her and her story to go walkabout, incognito, and capture her.
Angela follows – as Sophie Calle might – and with that one shot the homeless lady, with every second of her life etched into the folds of her face, is no longer invisible.
“My journey as a human is seen in my work,” She explains. “As a street photographer…I have learned more about myself and the world around me. It has allowed me to travel and meet people I would never meet, and experience life without fear. The journey is about how we choose to tell the story…how we allow to accept the connect we see or feel when we photograph, and how we let courage supersede the fear we may feel. Life is a journey and the camera is the tool we use to tell our story.”
Many street photographers will chime with this. This travelling through life as the world rushes in on us and our connectedness with that point of fusion, reflecting, perhaps, our curious addiction to ‘wanting to know and tell that story?’
Street photography, of course, is always a trip into an unknown universe beyond the ‘big bang’ of the everyday. A searing blowback of reality in all its candidness, in all its irony, in all its shadow, light and colour of unusualness.
Copyright ⓒ Angela Ambrosini
I suggest the photograph of the lady in the burka is haunting. The woman surrounded by darkness offers intrigue. It has, for me, a certain mystery, a certain beauty, maybe, dare I say it, even a sprinkling of magical realism.
“My photographs express how I feel,” Ambrosini replies in response. “Documenting life in NYC, there is such an intimate yet distant feeling you have from life or your subject. I try to make that connection yet again and resonate with the beautiful details that you may miss or ignore. When you allow that connection to happen you find yourself even if its’ [only] for a moment.”
She pauses, wanders around inside her own photographs. We can see her follow the homeless woman like a ghost on her shoulder, feel her shadow hidden in the blackness of the lady in the burka.
“I believe that stories are everywhere,” She continues. “It is how you choose to tell that story that matters. There is a saturation of images out there and while it may be hard to make an impact you have to stay true to who you are. The two elements I am most attracted to when I photograph is realism and impulse. When these two elements are present, they become magical.”
Mmmm, that kind of echoes…
Angela Ambrosini is a first generation American with Italian heritage. She was born and grew up between two zip codes : Brooklyn and Queens, New York City, studied photojournalism, and later obtained a masters degree in graphic design at Savannah College of Art and Design, Georgia, Atalanta.
“Graduate school was the most fulfilling experience of my life because it really allowed me to explore my passion in a way, I never really knew I could,” She revealed sounding, somehow, astonished. “The projects and the challenges given had me realise that I was doing street photography all along. It wasn’t something to be ashamed of, it was in fact storytelling at its best. I immediately went back to my old photos and started to see a pattern and a definite style that I can embrace and pursue.”
Copyright ⓒ Angela Ambrosini
Copyright ⓒ Angela Ambrosini
I think Ambrosini’s work is memorable, she has, for me, her own voice, that shouts out loudly from the streets of New York.
Her barefoot Christlike figure stands on the edge of the sidewalk, contemplating stepping into heavy traffic. It is, at once, religious, spiritual and tragic, touching us with compassion and curiosity. Our concern for our fellow human in crisis, but what the ‘policeman’ is he doing? Has he been pushed too far by the unbearable stresses of everyday existence? It is as haunting a shot, in its own way, as the lady in the burka.
Copyright ⓒ Angela Ambrosini
“It was taken summer 2019, on a typical humid summer NYC day,” Ambrosini said quietly. “I was in front of the New York Library…sitting on the steps. I saw this man preparing to walk across a busy NYC street. With his eyes closed – no visible fear – that I could see. I couldn’t understand what he was saying, there was just too much noise, until suddenly just as he was about to cross the street there was… an unexpected traffic jam. All the cars, that were once going fast, were, ironically, stopped and now waiting. When the noise of the traffic came to a stop, he opened his eyes. He seemed almost disappointed and remained still, at the edge of the street, with his arms up in the air – and it was at that moment that I chose to photograph what I saw.”
There is something profound about her comments and in her visual representation, the two merge in an extraordinary cinema of street photography. It flickers, it flies, pulls us in like metal attracted to a magnet.
“I feel that it is also the moment we choose to photograph,” She continues. “The moment we choose to detail the story in the frame that makes us who we are. It was at that moment I witness this man make a life or death decision – and luckily, he chose wisely.”
In another shot, a man has fallen over into a large shrubbery pot on the street. We assume he is drunk or drugged, but we don’t know this and he might in fact have had a heart attack? But, Angela has caught it, the toppled man, an odd image that tells us more about the extraordinary lives of ordinary folk than we probably realise.
Copyright ⓒ Angela Ambrosini
“When I saw this man laid over in such a fashion, I waited with another person,” She recalled. “We both called a police officer to make sure the person was in fact okay and alive. While we waited for the police to arrive, the crowd grew ever more intense. Someone asked me why I photographed this one moment, I asked them why they stopped to watch. It proved, to me, my point that we are all trying to find a way to connect. We stop to document life – real life as it happens. We all feel things – we all experience things – no matter how good or bad they may be. This is life – whether we want to judge it or accept it. We can all connect and help one other”
It is a profound image, just one of many that she has collected over her 20 years as a street photographer.
She falls silent, stares at her feet, searches for the secrets of the universe and beyond in a nondescript carpet. A street photographer I can only describe as thoughtful, philosophic, life-confirming, enthusiastic, wise.
Angela Ambrosini’s work captivates, poses many questions, which, if we are honest, is what the best street photographers tend to do.
“The rush of emotions,” She says thoughtfully and chews down on what it is she loves about street photography. “The emotions of fear and courage you feel at the same time, and the spontaneity you rely on to capture and tell the perfect moment.
“I love that every day is different than the next, and there is not one moment that can ever be alike or replicated. If you miss it, it is gone forever and if you capture it, it’s yours to tell, forever.”
Not going to argue with that.
Follow Angela on Instagram
To See more of Angela, visit her Website
*Angela Ambrosini started out with a 35mm Nikon F90X, before moving onto a Canon but currently uses a full frame Nikon 750 and, what she describes as, her ‘beloved’ Sony A7 Riii and adds ; “As I move into video.”*
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