Funk Shoots NYC in Color. He Takes Us to a Place Between the Real and the Ideal.

“The Early Work” 1969 to 1973 - (Part 2) At a tender 19 years and full of boundless energy, Mitchell Funk was a restless creator. The New York hippy psychedelic youth scene was bursting with creative energy. Posters for “The Endless Summer” "Jimi Hendrix" adorned the walls of his Brooklyn Heights pad. They were composed of never seen before Day-Glo colors that were hi-key, bright and punchy. The colors of this era served as a catalyst/challenge for Funk to rethink the current photographic environment. In 1969, young Funk rejected the black-and-white orientation of contemporary Street Photographers & sought out a style that was capable of implementing his personal aesthetic. That style was “Street Photography in Color.” Yet at this time, Color Photography was not yet considered fine art. On simple aesthetic grounds, the 19-year-old felt there was more to do in the medium. "Shoot the streets in Kodachrome". Clearly, there was an overlooked opportunity to exploit and very few were exploiting color photography’s potential bliss. To Funk, shooting color on the street was more than just novel, to him it was his identity. Color in color photography became as much the subject as the people on the street he was shooting. His goal was to elevate color & form to be equal to or above the narrative and to establish an ideal as much as a reality. By doing this, he became the anti-snapshot street photographer. Funk concentrated on the formal elements of the picture. His compositions were not loose grab shots but meticulously crafted & designed compositions. They emphasized light and design, color and form. The late 1960s /early 1970s were a period of ongoing creative accomplishments in the New York art world. What Funk was doing in street photography in color bears some parallel to the frenzy of creativity in painting at the time. In addition to the Day-Glo Color psychedelic artists, Color Field & Minimalist artists worked in downtown lofts. Their art was characterized primarily by large fields of flat color and reducing pictorial elements to their basic shapes.  This had to have a spillover effect on Funk. It’s over 50 years since he forged his style of “Street Photography in Color” Today, Funk still shoots the streets but the forthcoming images will show he’s anything but pedestrian. There will be eye-catching images that will be a triumph of light, color, & design intertwined with the humanity of New York.