Amy Touchette: Personal Ties. Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn
Street portraits made by Amy Touchette in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, with a Rolleiflex film camera.
“Photographing strangers on the street is like having an epic novel read aloud to you, only it’s real. You’re connected. You’re involved. And you carry every piece of it with you from then on.”—Amy Touchette
A resident of New York City since 1997, Amy Touchette started photographing people in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, soon after moving to the neighborhood in 2015. Perhaps best known for being the childhood home of rapper Jay-Z and the setting of Spike Lee’s film Do the Right Thing, what struck Touchette most about Bed-Stuy was its strong sense of community and the relationships that underpin it. Using a Rolleiflex film camera, friends, family members, and couples often caught her eye.
Knowing she was a stranger appealing for their time, Touchette tried to make the encounters as quick and easy as possible, making just two frames of each subject. Whether photographing in Hawaii, Japan, Malaysia, Vietnam, the American South, or in her own adopted neighborhood in Bed-Stuy, Touchette has always used photography to shine the light on others, a strong believer that eye contact is the gateway to empathy and the realization that we are all in this together. Although all of her projects stem from a personal endearment, these photographs, set in the streets she calls home, are especially personal.
Review
"Amy Touchette has the rarest of gifts, she adores people and photography as much as life itself. People trust her because she is a bright, charming, gentle soul who is as timid as she is brave. Her eye doesn't judge, but while understanding our similarities she celebrates our differences. Her images may seem as straightforward as she is, but they explore relationships that are fraught with imperfections. Looking at her pictures you will find all the joys and pain of the cards we are dealt."--Amy Arbus, Photographer
"Amy Touchette represents the new generation of documentary photographers who are contributing to preserving a very important history and culture in this 21st century. Arming herself with a camera and a compassionate heart, she photographed ordinary people in her Bedford-Stuyvesant community, creating intimate portraits of personal ties, kinship, and individuality that are now frozen moments in time."--Jamel Shabazz, Photographer
"Amy Touchette's loving portraits remind us that Brooklyn is still a multi-generational neo-African village in places, and optically Thriving While Black with transparent soul power."--Greg Tate, Writer and musician
About the Author
Amy Touchette is a photographer based in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, who specializes in street portraits. Her photographs are exhibited and published internationally, most recently at the National Portrait Gallery and in Women Street Photographers (Prestel, 2021). Her first monograph, Shoot the Arrow: A Portrait of The World Famous *BOB*, was published by Un-Gyve Press in 2013. She’s represented by ClampArt in NYC and Little Big Galerie in Paris, France.
       
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