Photographs and text by
Gaia Light and Alessandro Cosmelli
We took these photographs through the window of the bus.
Attracted by the prospect of confronting the complexity of the United States, which was about to be reshaped by a historic election, we moved to Brooklyn from Italy in 2007 on the eve of a dramatic transition for America. Living in Brooklyn, feeling its special energy, and experiencing its complexity was an ideal way for us to try to better understand America in this unique time.
Not owning a car, we quickly discovered that the bus was a perfect way to get around and to see what was going on in the streets. The bus carries a special quality of truth, which makes each ride an intimate experience, different from what is experienced on trains. We were intrigued by the diversity, the vibrant atmospheres, the roughness, and the sweetness we saw. This was the story we wanted to tell. The images in this photographic series, which we call Brooklyn Buzz, were inspired by Robert Frank’s famous and influential 1958 photographic project From the Bus, New York.
Born of a passion for riding buses in our adopted city, these photographs are a result of the time-honored tradition of photographers taking the pulse of things. Against the stereotype of Brooklyn as a place of hipster spirit, we found instead a vibrant, real, yet brooding mix of people and places, all captured through the glass of the bus. The chance arrangement of this world viewed through the filter of a bus window is, for us, a poetic reflection and composition of the larger forces that shape this extraordinarily human place.
We think these images are a potent assessment of the state of things on the cusp of what we hope is a renewal of the American Dream. Taken during the summer of 2010, the photographs are, we think, not a document but a vision. The tone of these images, though often forbidding, is of hope—or of renaissance.
Brooklyn Buzz is a book by Gaia Light and Alessandro Cosmelli. $40; Damiani.
