When was the last time you posed for a group photograph? Was it back in high school, on your last day at work, or perhaps during your birthday or wedding? What was the experience like for you? Maybe it involved stiff smiles, perfect postures, and hair swept back, with your hands at your sides like a young cadet reporting for duty. A group portrait is often dictated by the photographer, often resulting in a sliver of what you imagined. But, this was never the case when photographer Neal Slavin began photographing groups in the 1970s. In fact, he did quite the opposite. “What I do is I ask someone in the group—it could be the director of the organization—to arrange the people as he or she sees fit,” Slavin tells The Phoblographer. “Because I don’t know the hierarchy of the members in the group… The only thing I know is that they will be themselves after we start shooting.”
All the images are by Neal Slavin, courtesy of Damian Books. Used with permission. You can follow his work on his website or his Instagram @nealslavin. His photo book can be purchased from here.
Freezing a Fraction of The Past
The year was 1972 when Neal Slavin came across a group photograph of a boy scout troop, which sparked an epiphany. The image, which was captured 12 years before Slavin saw it, drew the award-winning photographer closer to it. “I saw all the faces, which were overwhelming and compelling, and (it) made me wonder whatever happened to these young boys,” Slavin says.
However, it was this moment that led him to contemplate the relationship between memory and photography. “Photography is about several things: light, memory (memorialization), spontaneity, and design,” he explains. “The minute you take a picture, it’s memorialized and etched into our minds (the way a painting does not do) and in our hearts as a memory. This boy scout picture did exactly that for me.”
Enterprises, Inc., Brooklyn, New York, 1972-75
The surge of creativity led him to make a project documenting groups. The first group he photographed was an ambulance corps (Flushing Volunteer Ambulance Corps) and their trophies, where his friend was a volunteer. “At that time, which was 1972, they used to have ambulance races in their spare time when they weren’t on call,” says Slavin, who is also a film director. “With the light shining into my lens, I took a sun-drenched, mood-filled portrait of the group,” he added.
I’m afraid I can’t give you a clue to the essential camera gear that I use because it changes all the time and it’s meaningless in the process of what I do. It has nothing to do with taking my pictures other than being an instrument.
Neal Slavin
From then on, there was no looking back. Neal photographed every organization humans have created—bingo players, ballroom dancers, bodybuilders, gravediggers, Star Trek conventioneers, and religious congregations—which culminated into his expansive book When Two or More Are Gathered Together.
Neal Slavin and His Quest of Group Portraits
To create such compelling portraits, Neal Slavin realized he needed to step back from the position of director. As a result, he would ask someone from within the group to help arrange the individuals. Whether it is pageant contestants or a group of twins at the International Twins Association, we see how the group or the people view themselves. “I let the group be who they are (and) in the positions they are already in,” he says. It may also mean “the important members” may arrange themselves “out in front” while the others go back, or vice versa. “In a sense, you have a kind of hidden sociology of the striations of the group, without the photographer asking anyone to leave the comfort of their group position.”
I want my work to affirm our self identity within our public persona; to affirm the joy of being together rather than being apart. My intention is to intensely glimpse that kind of human spirit through the lens of my camera.
Neal Slavin
When you look at the colorful images, they not only evoke a sense of nostalgia for times gone by but also show how unique we are, despite our differences. Each portrait is a study of individual behavior and character, but on the whole, the multifaceted personalities only reveal what makes us truly human. When asked whether his intention was to capture the eccentricities of individuals, Slavin says: “I never set out to photograph eccentricities; I set out to photograph groups in their native environments and how they might behave in those environments.” He adds that “eccentricities” would not be the best term to describe what he does, as he appears to be going after people’s quirkiness. “Let me be perfectly clear: I am not making fun of anybody,” he emphasizes. “If there’s laughter because there’s some extra eccentricities or quirkiness, we are laughing with everybody and not at anybody. That has to be made perfectly clear in terms of the principle I work under.”
The Magic of Color
Another significant facet of Slavin’s work is the use of color. At the time when black and white photography was the norm, Slavin was pushing boundaries with color. In fact, he is one of the earliest adopters of the medium, just like Stephen Shore and Saul Leiter.
Slavin’s reason for choosing color back then reflects how much thought and care went into When Two or More Are Gathered Together. “The abstraction of black and white has beautiful, infinite possibilities in the right photographer’s hands,” he says, adding that the sweep of its passage is “usually far smoother and probably more mysterious than its color counterpart.” However, black and white can’t do one thing that color does… giving “an infinite amount of information to the viewer that is as deep as any in-depth non-fictional work can be.”
For me, there is never a clash of colors. Color is to be explored and exploited.
Neal Slavin
A Photo Book on America
Initially published in 1976, When Two or More Are Gathered Together is now celebrating its 50th anniversary, with a special edition. What makes this print so distinct is that one notices the evolution of humans as a species, including our style, tradition, and understanding of the world. The pictures showcase a gradual but visible change in our personal and social trajectories from the 1970s to today. “I had set out in 1972 to take a snapshot of America in the mid-1970s. That was my idea from the beginning,” Slavin shares about the project. So, when it came to the creation of the book and its subsequent anniversary edition, Slavin’s idea remained consistent, “So, it was very clear to me what that body of work was about—a singularity that didn’t have to be sorted out in terms of how to make the book different from the contemporary work—it just was.” Slavin states that the book’s chronology ‘laid itself out.’ “It spoke to us; we did not speak to it.”
In an era fraught with social, political, and digital unrest, Neal Slavin achieved what we fail to see even today: our strength and harmony in unity. By depicting the ever-evolving social life of America, Slavin highlights the significance of connection, which sometimes divides and other times binds us together. The question remains: Do we come together despite our differences, or do we stay apart due to them?
