WHAT IS PHOTOGRAPHY?
"Nothing but relations, nothing but affects. Photography and, and, and. Ceasing to suppress the AND, photography works with the infinite responsibility that one is never quits with regard to the other. Whether or not so-called 'appropriated images are used, one is never quits with regard to the other. Digital images; analogue images; straight images; queer images; colour images; black and white images; single images; composite images; framed images; unbound images; one is never quits with regard to relations, to the implication of an other.”
I have been taking photographs and making images for over fifty years.
The time has come to share it all.
WHO IS STEPHEN BEST?
Stephen Best has been a practicing photographer for over fifty years.
In 1980, he dropped out of art school, left Australia and headed for New York. For six years, he obsessively documented the city through his lens. As an outsider, he was drawn to capturing fleeting moments, recording instants in time and revealing the unnoticed. It was a time of great change in Lower Manhattan—a city falling apart and broke. It was a time when rents were cheap, a time when music and art collides.
Returning to Sydney (and art school), he graduated with a Bachelor of Visual Arts (Photography) with Honours. Now living in Adelaide with his partner Rachel, Best divides his time between the city and the idyllic Adelaide Hills. An accomplished cook, ceramic artist, gardener and yoga teacher, photography remains his enduring passion.
WHAT IS NUMBERS?
NUMBERS is the result of painstakingly editing down more than 15,000 negatives from his time living in downtown New York between 1980 and 1986. The images offer a deeply personal reflection on that turbulent era, captured through Best’s unique perspective. NUMBERS is the first of two books—a visual memoir that invites you to sit down, take a breath, and follow his journey through the streets of 1980s New York.
Stephen Best NY 1980 - photo John Foy