Money Team
by Andrew Whitey
by Andrew Whitey
I took this photo in May of 2012 as I was finishing up my year of photojournalism studies at the International Center of Photography (ICP). There were 30 some odd people in the program and each of us had to find a subject or issue and photograph a long term project in the course of the year. The projects that students shot varied greatly in terms of subject matter and location. ICP is located a block away from Times Square in midtown, so a lot of the students chose stories that took place in Manhattan. I wanted to shoot something off the beaten path and had heard a lot about this neighborhood called "Brownsville" located deep in Brooklyn. There were some statistics that originally peaked my interest; It has the highest murder rate per capita in all of the five boroughs and is the highest concentration of public housing (projects) in the United States. Here, controversial "stop and frisk" strategies occur almost daily with mixed results, thus only further causing distrust between residents and police. The only stories that the media seemed focused on in this area were ones relating to gang violence, random killings, and generally negative representations of the area and those who live there. I felt that there were parts of the bigger story not being told.
Back to the photo. This group of kids, who ran in a crew called the "Money Team", were subjects that I ended up meeting on the street while walking around with my camera out. They asked me what I was doing there (I got asked that almost daily while working on this) and I told them about the project that I was working on and that I was interested in meeting and photographing residents of this area. They sounded stoked on the idea of having their photos taken and invited me to hang out with them. There's not a whole lot to do out in Brownsville if you're a teenager. There's a few playgrounds, some basketball courts, and a bustling shopping district off Pitkin Ave. This photo happened on the fifth day hanging out with them. We had been walking around the neighboring projects when we got hit by a fast moving storm, We dipped back to the Tilden Houses to seek refuge. Smoking weed wasn't anything foreign to this group (or me for that matter) so one of the default activities seemed to be rolling a blunt and blasting hip hop. As this process was happening, the clouds cleared and this ray of light poured through the windows. To me, this moment visually communicated the boredom that can occur when there aren't opportunities or better options present. For me, I took to skateboarding, that got me out of the house, kept me out of trouble (mostly), and expanded the world around me and eventually led me to photography and photojournalism. A great deal of this path had to do with my upbringing and access to resources. I think that this neighborhood and the plight of those who live in public housing is only a small part of a much bigger and complex story that stems from policies that keeps people in this social class trapped in a state of financial dependance and being held back by systematic red tape; but that is a whole other conversation entirely.
Back to the photo. This group of kids, who ran in a crew called the "Money Team", were subjects that I ended up meeting on the street while walking around with my camera out. They asked me what I was doing there (I got asked that almost daily while working on this) and I told them about the project that I was working on and that I was interested in meeting and photographing residents of this area. They sounded stoked on the idea of having their photos taken and invited me to hang out with them. There's not a whole lot to do out in Brownsville if you're a teenager. There's a few playgrounds, some basketball courts, and a bustling shopping district off Pitkin Ave. This photo happened on the fifth day hanging out with them. We had been walking around the neighboring projects when we got hit by a fast moving storm, We dipped back to the Tilden Houses to seek refuge. Smoking weed wasn't anything foreign to this group (or me for that matter) so one of the default activities seemed to be rolling a blunt and blasting hip hop. As this process was happening, the clouds cleared and this ray of light poured through the windows. To me, this moment visually communicated the boredom that can occur when there aren't opportunities or better options present. For me, I took to skateboarding, that got me out of the house, kept me out of trouble (mostly), and expanded the world around me and eventually led me to photography and photojournalism. A great deal of this path had to do with my upbringing and access to resources. I think that this neighborhood and the plight of those who live in public housing is only a small part of a much bigger and complex story that stems from policies that keeps people in this social class trapped in a state of financial dependance and being held back by systematic red tape; but that is a whole other conversation entirely.