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Updated: March 2002 SIDEWALK STORIES More Press Coverage !! "Salvo Galano used to nail a simple burlap canvas on a wall across from a soup kitchen run by the Church of the holy Apostles in Chelsea. Then the photographer would wait patiently for the homeless men and women who frequented the place to drift over and pose at his makeshift studio. Mr. Galano set out on a journey two years ago to show an unseen face of the homeless population in New York City. The 32-year-old Italian photographer was convinced that people in America would be shocked if they saw what he saw on the city sidewalks. He was certain, too, that he would find a publisher for his book, his social document that told a broader truth: that the homeless were not so different from anyone that he knew. But by the end of Mr. Galano's journey last month, he was broke, unable to pay the rend on his apartment, living a couple of days here and there with friend. He became a homeless man, in other words, with a cell phone. His book is a dream deferred. “In the last two years, friends and colleagues have watched with wonderment as Mr. Galano’s book—called ‘Sidewalk Stories’—became the focus of his daily routine. He befriended about 15 homeless men and women. Night and day, he was in their company. They preened for him in a small park across from the soup kitchen. The project so consumed the photographer that he gave up other work assignments, maybe even a bit of common sense. "Given the circumstances, one might say that it is imprudent, but when you have a passion, you have a passion,’ said Clyde Kuemmerle, programs coordinator for the Church of the Holy Apostles soup kitchen. ‘And there he was, with a beautiful representation of people who do live on the streets, and there he was himself, all of a sudden, living on the streets.’” —"Chronicling The Homeless, a Photographer Meets Their Fate," The New York Times, Metro Section, August 27, 2000 "Compounding the problems faced by the homeless is that they've been part of the scenery for so long that those who might help are inured to their plight. In Sidewalk Stories, a collection of portraits of people living on the city's streets, photographer Salvo Galano separates his subjects from the symbols of their circumstances—ie. garbage cans, cardboard shelters—in hopes of narrowing the psychological distance between us and them... this book forces us to look at these people, not through them." —Time Out New York "An inventor, a grandmother, a policeman, a Naval Academy cadet—all offer stories, told alongside their portraits, that help to humanize a problem too often abstracted." —DoubleTake "To his credit, Galano literally invests all his resources to this project, a committment of social justice that is worthy of all praise that cane be given." —The ICAA Review of Books "These photographs by Salvo Galano show the humanity of the homeless people depicted....They are not presented as case histories, but rather as people who have experienced terrible difficulty, and have ended up on the street....These are powerful, warm photographs, and reading through this collection reminds one that people living on streets and benches and in shelters should not be thrown away like trash." —Metapsychology "Perhaps [Galano's] own economic decline is the best summary of the book's central thesis: that anyone can become homeless and that once dispossessed society does little to help people. Galano's own circumstances also become part of the romantic legend of the documentary photographer, who navigates the shifting boundary between privileged observer and unhappy participant in the life style of his or her subjects.... The photographs of Sidewalk Stories are friendly, warm, open... the rather straightforward images resemble the work of many fashion and portrait photographers—sharply focused, well-lit, posed. One can argue that depicting people who have no homes in a style of photography that is usually reserved for more affluent, more successful members of society is already a positive statement. But it would be an insufficient one. What is interesting about this work, finally, is Galano's quirky descriptions of each person he encounters." —Pixel Press |
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