ENISE CARR

Enise Carr has been challenging himself to is home to the world’s greatest collection of cast-iron architecture. But more than that, SoHo is unique among New York’s neighborhoods for its classical French and Italian architectural designs. It simply doesn’t look like anywhere else, not even the neighboring West Village or Lower East Side. 

Enise Carr Explaining to She How Condensation Works, Acrylic on Wooden Panels, 2002

For one thing, the colors are much more distinct in SoHo. They’re brighter. Perhaps that’s a reflection on the people living here. But for many of the cast-iron buiildings that give SoHo it’s unmistakable character, the reason for their bright coloring is actually pretty obvious: whenever you construct anything from wrought iron, it’s going to look like, well, wrought iron.

So the colors of SoHo as they’re known, or at least as they ought to be known, the colors that are just a street photographers dream come true (where else can you find so many amazing backdrops?), are actually the result of many, many coats of bright paints. And they light up a photo in ways even a flash cannot.

For me, it’s all about New York streets. They’ve been immortalized in who knows how many songs and poems, movies and books, but even though I’ve spent years documenting them with my photography, I don’t think I’m any closer to understanding them than I was when I started. They are their own kind of art, and for a photographer, all you need to do is setup the shot and take it. I have lived in New York for only five years, but I have been a working, professional photographers for fifteen years now.