#BJP 7856: Tales of the City

“It’s my sexiest project, for sure,” says Richard Renaldi of his latest photobook, Manhattan Sunday. Shot late at night and early in the morning in New York’s clubs, it’s a portrait of a nocturnal playground, peopled by free spirits. Renaldi moved to New York in 1986 and immersed himself in its clubs; 20 years later, he still enjoys a night out dancing, but set up a large format camera and tripod to shoot his series, on the dance floors and on the streets nearby. It was, he says “a little nutso, given the liability issues….but fun”.
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Renaldi’s series is BJP’s latest cover story, in an issue which explores many other facets of urban life. Dayanita Singh’s shots of factories in her native India offer a very different view of the city, for example, recording a country in flux as its manufacturing goes post-industrial. Fred Mortagne’s book Attraper Au Vol, meanwhile, show how skaters adapt rigid cityscapes to their own design, re-imagining the spaces and their possibilities. Meanwhile Mark Neville also explores how the environment is reshaped through play, shooting children and their games for a forthcoming exhibition called Child’s Play.

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Elsewhere BJP showcases’s Bruni Cattani’s examination of the humble carousel, Adam Makarenko’s cosmic dioramas and Enda Bowe’s anonymous Irish every-town; Richard Mosse talks us through his continued work with thermographic weapons, to be shown at the Barbican’s Curve Gallery, and JaipurPhoto’s second outing breathes new life into travel photography.