Brooklyn, New York, 1980: Young photographer Jamel Shabazz begins taking pictures for a series that will become one of his best-known bodies of work. In the Flatbush neighborhood, he photographs young people who—like the Fly Girl on our cover—confidently strike a pose. He also captures children playing in the street. A recurring prop: the discarded shopping cart into which the kids squeeze themselves.
Shabazz, himself a native of Brooklyn, called the series A Time of Innocence, referring to an era that was palpably drawing to a close. Having just returned from Germany—where he had been stationed as a US Army soldier—Shabazz found his hometown to be, in his own words, a "warzone where a lot of young people were dying at the hands of other young people." A plight he felt he needed to react to artistically: with a counter-narrative to war, poverty, violence, and the era’s prevailing media narratives about Black neighborhoods. "What I look for is love and joy, because as an artist I have a responsibility to be a light," he said. The people Shabazz photographed reflect this light. They usually look directly into the camera, feeling they can present themselves as they wish to be seen.
