Success Makes you a Target: A Conversation with Alex Harsley of the 4th Street Photo Gallery

Born in 1938, Alex Harsley is a Documentary Photographer, Curator for The 4th Street Photo Gallery and Founder of the Minority Photographers Inc. Alex and Amon sat for about an hour or so to talk about photographic sciences, visual conversations and surviving the nature of life.

Muhammad Ali Sparring // Photography by Alex Harsley

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More about Alex Harsley

Alex Harsley has curated The 4th Street Photo Gallery and The Minority Photographers non-profit since the early 1970’s. His own reportage style of photography started in 1958 as the first black photographer for the New York City District Attorey. Since that time he has continued to capture the true intimate moments and personality of New York City. His collection contains the historical lineage of musicians, politicians, street folk, landscapes and neighbors from the 1950’s through present day. His documentary medium consists of film, digital photography and digital sound and video.

Photography by Alex Harsley

Show Notes

• Getting Older and much wiser
• Catching up-images of those realities
• Growing up in South Carolina
• Cotton Gins & Riding on Wagons
• The importance of resilience
• Challenges
• Photographic Sciences
• Misconceptions about photography – it isn’t simple.
• Coming out with something rather unique.
• Harlem, NY
• Doo Wop
• The Top 10 Biggest Doo-Wop Songs of All Time, The Most Popular Doo-Wop Songs Ever by Robert Fontenot
• Jazz
• Here’s some Jazz Amon is loving out on right now: Matthew Halsall
• Victrola Machine
• History of 78s
• Curiosity and Wonder
• Rock Hill, South Carolina
• F. W. Woolworth Company
• B&H Photo Video
• Box Camera
• Magazines, album covers
• LIFE magazine
• New York City
• Visual Conversations 
• Present ideas with no words at all
• The District Attorney for New York County was Frank S. Hogan in 1959
• Photographing realities and in between realities
• Fisheye lens
• 800mm lens
• “…I wanted to expand time.” Alex Harsley Quote
• Peeping into People’s Business
• Hugh Bell, Photographer
• Hugh Bell Wikipedia Page
• Illustrative Photography
• Minority Photographers, Inc. Non Profit
• “I was working with the geniuses.” Alex Harsley Quote
• Tom Grimm, Photographer and Author 
• Dr. Lloyd E. Barden
• Documenting our history and the controversy 
• The importance of central interests and communication
• Jeremiah Moss
• Outdoor Fence Exhibition
• The best place to start is in the public.
• Radio Shack
• AG Flash Bulbs 
• Blue Note Jazz Covers
• I retired at 29…
• What is the key to getting to 40 years in?
•  “I was always too late and too early.” Alex Harsley Quote
• 35mm Camera
• Exakta Camera
• You can’t skimp on this photography thing, you have to make the investment.
• 1997 Whitney Biannual-  David Hammons explored the video medium, collaborating with artist Alex Harsley on a number of video works, including Phat Free (originally titled Kick the Bucket), which was included in the Whitney Biennial and other venues. 
• Success makes you a target.
• Invisibility is safe.
• Keeper of the things forgotten
• Poetry 
• Sightings
• Otto von Bismarck
• Orange, New Jersey
• “I gamble on faith” Alex Harsley Quote
• Photography needs a museum
• Muhammad Ali
• Cutting down a trees and riding horses
• Surviving is the nature of life.
• Becoming a kid again.
• Becoming somebody.

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