120 mm Kodak Portra 400 NC
Look my Way is an exploration into the lives of two Bangladeshi vendors who immigrated to New York City two years ago in search of a better life for their families and themselves. Mohammed and Hussain are roommates who share a small, two-room Bronx apartment with up to five other Bangladeshi men. They work as vendors for the NYC Green Cart program, as well as for various other cart owners throughout New York. Their jobs involve long hours and hard physical labor for what some may consider low wages, but what their families in Bangladesh consider a small fortune. They endure this lifestyle for their families.
While their lives are part of the fabric of New York City—their narratives two of the eight million other New York stories—they are often overlooked in the city’s busy streets. Since I first met Hussain at a Green Cart in East Harlem in the fall of 2009, I have come to know them beyond their roles as vendors. They’ve welcomed me into their home on several occasions where we’ve shared meals and talked about our lives.
As a life-long New Yorker, I am as guilty as anyone for walking our streets with narrow blinders on, limiting my vision to where I have to go, and thinking about how late I am. I’ll buy a pretzel without ever considering the vendors’ families, aspirations, and struggles, all the while perpetually lost in my own personal narrative. Look My Way is an attempt to understand how all of our lives are made up of moments rich with history, drama, silence, and even solitude.
Thomas Holton was born in Guatemala City, Guatemala. He is a 2005 graduate of the School of Visual Arts MFA photography program and his work has been widely exhibited nationally and abroad, including the New York Public Library, the Houston Center for Photography, and the Griffin Museum of Photography in Winchester, Massachusetts. In 2005, Holton was one of twenty-four photographers selected for the Art + Commerce Festival for Emerging Photographers, and was one of American Photo’s Ten Best Young Photographers the following year. In 2007 and 2008, his body of work entitled The Lams of Ludlow Street was met with wide acclaim, appearing in the New York Public Library’s Eminent Domain: Contemporary Photography and the City show, exhibited at the Sasha Wolf Gallery in New York, and featured in both Aperture magazine and the New York Times. Holton currently teaches photography at the International Center of Photography and the Trinity School, and is represented by the Sasha Wolf Gallery.
http://www.thomasholton.com/
