An Interview with Larry Racioppo
Larry spent decades photographing his neighborhood, returning again and again to the people, rhythms, and small moments that shaped everyday life. The photos featured in his latest book, Memorial ’76, were made in a single afternoon on just a few rolls of film during a Brooklyn Memorial Day parade in 1976. This particular collection of images offers one small but memorable piece of that larger body of work. Paired with a thoughtful essay reflecting on memory, neighborhood, and time, the book feels intimate and keenly observant.
We spoke about the making of the book, the meaning behind that afternoon in 1976, and how a single day photographed decades ago continues to stay with him.
Fordham University Press calls “Memorial ’76” both “a celebration and a kind of time capsule”. At what point did you realize these photographs had become something historically significant beyond your own personal archive?
My age and health have kept me more focused on going through my past work than making new work. When I began thinking about America’s 250th birthday, I remembered photographing in 1976 in South Brooklyn a few months before its 200th birthday. So I found the negatives and scanned them. I realized that I had a small but neat completed project that could become an exhibit and a book. The timing seemed right.
You photographed South Brooklyn as someone from the neighborhood, not as an outsider passing through. How did that familiarity shape the way people responded to your camera?
I photographed in my South Brooklyn neighborhood constantly, especially during rituals and events sponsored by St. John the Evangelist, the local Catholic church attended by my extended family. This Memorial Day Parade was such an event, so some of the participants may have recognized me. But it was more my familiarity with the community that affected the photographs. I shot simply and directly as I walked along with the marchers.
The book arrives nearly fifty years after the photographs were made. Did the emotional meaning of the images change for you over time?
The meaning of the photos has not changed. I am often pleased when I see how serious and focused I was at the beginning of my “career”. When I made these photographs I had no idea that they – or I – would be around 50 years later. Without being aware that I was doing so, I documented an event that would resonate in the future.
Did revisiting the negatives and editing the work for publication bring back memories you had forgotten?
Looking at this body of work reminded me of the Brooklyn I grew up in. I recognized men and women I had photographed at other church related events, the volunteers who were essential to St. John’s functioning. The Parade path was along streets I had walked since I was a child, past stores where my family shopped and streets where relatives lived.
Did you come across any photos you had forgotten about? Anything that surprised you?
Not really. This is a pretty simple body of work. The overall look of a working class neighborhood as opposed to the present gentrified Brooklyn was good to see.
Your work captures people in a very direct but respectful way. How do you approach photographing strangers in public spaces without losing that sense of humanity?
Respecting people is the key. Sometimes I actually ask for permission, more often it’s simply eye contact. I’m usually standing right in front of the people I photograph. In general, I think that most people take it as a compliment that I’m interested in them enough to “take” their photograph. I wish I had done more to get prints to the many subjects I never saw again.
What do you hope younger photographers, especially those documenting their own communities, take away from Memorial ’76?
I recommend photographing everything and everyone as often and as much as possible. Some images will stand out immediately, others years later. In the beginning, I photographed way more than I printed. But I processed my negatives properly and 50 years later they were fine when I started scanning them.
That’s fantastic advice. South Brooklyn has changed dramatically since these photographs were made. Do you see the book primarily as a historical document, a personal memoir, or something else entirely?
I think that the personal photographs I began making in the 1970’s have on their own become historical documents. I intended to make the best and truest photographs I could, in the sense of Walker Evans’ “lyric documentary” images.
Thank you, Larry, for sharing this, and so many of your projects, with us.
You can purchase a copy of Larry’s book Memorial ’76 here.
