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MATTHEW CONNORS







Jeff Mermelstein
Matthew Connors
contribution to “photograph is 30,” photograph magazine (Dec, 2018)

Jeff Mermelstein’s rough-hewn cellphone pictures of other people’s cellphones emanate from a lifetime commitment to street photography, but look unlike anything else we’ve seen in the genre. Setting aside the poetics of chance pedestrian choreography and dramatic midtown light, Mermelstein surreptitiously photographs disembodied hands clutching private text conversations on fractured screens. The results feel less like the dispatches of an auteur than the voyeuristic obsessions of an eccentric genius who has cracked a code and opened up small portals to the desires, insecurities, and heartbreaks brewing below the surface of the public sphere.

Jeff Mermelstein
Matthew Connors
contribution to “photograph is 30,” photograph magazine (Dec, 2018)

Jeff Mermelstein’s rough-hewn cellphone pictures of other people’s cellphones emanate from a lifetime commitment to street photography, but look unlike anything else we’ve seen in the genre. Setting aside the poetics of chance pedestrian choreography and dramatic midtown light, Mermelstein surreptitiously photographs disembodied hands clutching private text conversations on fractured screens. The results feel less like the dispatches of an auteur than the voyeuristic obsessions of an eccentric genius who has cracked a code and opened up small portals to the desires, insecurities, and heartbreaks brewing below the surface of the public sphere.