The City

The City, published by powerHouse Books in 2001, gathers photographs Mitch Epstein made of New York between 1995 and 1999. Color still lifes and street scenes appear alongside black-and-white portraits of his family and friends.

The unpaginated, 112-page book collects 85 four-color images of the city interspersed with black-and-white portraits. Subjects include a display of deli cakes, the prize wall of a street-festival shooting gallery, and a sports jacket folded on the grass in Central Park. An accompanying essay by Marvin Heiferman argues the book departs from the tropes of earlier New York street photography associated with William Klein, Garry Winogrand, and Nan Goldin. Heiferman calls its narrative elliptical and quietly paced.

The City followed Vietnam: A Book of Changes (1992-97), Epstein's photographs made in Vietnam over three years. It preceded Family Business (2003), his project on his father's failing businesses in Holyoke, Massachusetts, which won the 2004 Kraszna-Krausz Photography Book Award. Epstein went on to make American Power (2004-2009), a survey of energy production across the United States.