Christine Osinski: Summer Days Staten Island

Taken in the forgotten borough of Staten Island between 1983 and 1984, the photographs in Christine Osinskis Summer Days Staten Island create a portrait of working class culture in an often overlooked section of New York City. Captured on Osinskis large format 4 x 5 camera as she wandered the island, her candid portraits of strangers, vernacular architecture and quotidian scenes reveal an invisible landscape within reach of the thriving metropolis of Manhattan. The working class neighbourhoods that Osinski captured are devoid of the skyscrapers, swarms of pedestrians and choking masses of traffic that are a short ferry ride away. Instead, she captures kids riding bikes on open, empty streets, suburban homes with neatly tended yeards and the small-town feel of New Yorks least populous borough. Accompanying the series of images is an essay by Paul Moakley, Time magazines deputy director of photography and visual enterprise.