The second time I was nearly apprehended for using my camera on the Staten Island Ferry, a crew worker asked as a police officer escorted me from the boat, “Why? Why do you need to keep doing this?”
“I love the boat,” I answered. “It’s incredible.”
An unofficial rule prohibited photography except for those cameras pointed out into the harbor from the outside decks. My goal, was to look inward and reveal more of the subtleties and diversity of passengers and moments aboard the ship during the seven mile trip across the New York Harbor.
I hadn’t begun riding the boat (as it’s affectionately known to locals) until 1998. By the time I began shooting steadily in 2003, much had changed. The lax atmosphere and cast of both official and unauthorized boat regulars were held to greater scrutiny after 9/11 and the crash of the Andrew Barberi Ferry in October 2003. The vendors and musicians largely disappeared, the shoe shine guys finally packed it in. The preachers? Maybe they just gave up.
Still, each day was a new venture on the boat. First intrigued by sounds—conversations, myriad stories and characters—it soon became my visual canvas and found myself mixing in with crowds of tourists, peeking in on a glimpse of romance or a portrait of solitude. It is a complexity of fleeting moments I’ve attempted to paint to memory.
Garry Winogrand has a b/w image of ferry travelers neatly gathered in perfect balance at the boat’s stern which stands as a valubale time-piece. The photo is not so much an inspiration as it is an important reminder of a by-gone era, a much different time. I’m compelled to create a modern history of these boats—a look into the sections, the reflections of its diversity of people and aesthetics; the ever-changing harbor sets a new mood from night to day, from season to season.
Ferrying is one of my thematic portfolio projects.
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