'Coney Island is one of the places where a naked man is just one of the community’s many oddities and entertainments …nothing special.'
Where I grew up, there wasn't a Coney Island, or a permanent Carnival or park situated near by. The closest thing was the Autumn fair. Once a year, our Exhibition grounds were taken over by traveling carnival rides and games, concession stands, loud music and the smell of cotton candy and stale popcorn. It was also the time when prized farm animals shared the stage with touring soap opera stars and washed up music acts. Country singers who once shared the stage with Kenny Rogers or Dolly Parton, now hawked their cd's in the last venue left as their career's sled towards obscurity.
I loved the carnival, especially at night. The lights, the sounds and smells and especially the vibrate energy. I look forward to i each year and usually began bugging my parents about it when the first posters when up in August. I was never really a big fan of the rides, nor the food or games, it was the sights and feel of walking through the fair ground that excited me. It seemed our whole community was there and that the grounds were the core, the pulse of the city, at least when the fair was in town. Those carnival grounds allowed me to feel alive, to fee apart of something I didn't feel the rest of the year.
Sadly, as we get older, life usually manages to destroy and shatter most of what we once considered magic. When I was a kid, I didn't notice the darkness and bright colored flashing lights were just smoke and mirrors, a surface of illusion to what lay beneath. Most kids love carnivals and circus, but broken kids crave the energy even more intensely. It calls to them, quietly but powerfully. Some just visit, but others stay, blending into and beyond the illusion to a sense of belonging for the first time in their lives.
'I did not have a happy childhood, but throughout my childhood three places brought me endless joy: the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Three- Ring Circus Side Show (the actual circus, not so much) at Madison Square Garden, the MSG Wild West Show and Rodeo and Coney Island. Unlike the circus and the rodeo which only came once or twice a year, Coney Island was forever present.'
'It was a world of New York Harbor Seals, Freak Shows, hot dogs, corn on the cob, cherrystone clams, humongous french fries, cotton candy, all kinds of strange and mysterious arcade games, Skee-ball and all the wondrous prizes and collecting shells and sand dollars along the surf. Coney Island is my good to go place on mental health days.'
'I’ve lost count of the number of men I’ve photographed on the beach, on the boardwalk, under the pier, along the side streets…never grows tired, always makes me happy. Coney Island is also one of the places where a naked man is just one of the community’s many oddities and entertainments …nothing special.'
Richard's images of Coney Island take me back to that feeling of anticipation of excitement when first stepping onto the fair grounds when I was a kid. The heightened sensation of energy which surrounded me, almost frozen by the stimulative anticipation of where to start and where to go. Richard's images don't hide what's beneath, but nor do they dwell on them. They focus on the visual and the colored lights in the darkness trigger the childhood magic of everything carnivals have to offer.
I may have momentarily crushed on a cute carny or two, especially as they were ensuring that safety bar was locked tightly below my waist. Most were friendly, especially as you embarked a ride, sometimes less so, if you were feeling a little nauseous after the ride stopped spinning. There was always a sexual component to the energy at a carnival, it's source, I didn't learn until I got older. I don't think I ever could have dreamed of running into a naked man, especially one as beautiful as Josh, while I was wandering along the midway. Josh looks slightly in awe of all that surrounds him, making him the perfect guide to escort us through all the sites and sounds of Richard's Coney Island.
'Josh had never done street nudes before, almost begging me to pop his naked in the streets of New York cherry. Watching him evolve during the shoot was joyful and funny…at first a bit shy and cautious, but Coney Island ultimately takes over with it’s quirkiness, bravado and sexual history. Coney Island was once a center for many of New York’s most famous and glamorous brothels—going way back to the actual founding of the resort and amusement park in 1880.'
'By the end of the shoot, Josh was strutting his stuff along the beach and the boardwalk, enjoying total freedom and reveling in his own sexuality. Men and women walked, jogged and rode their bikes along the Boardwalk paying little attention to Josh’s public and very relaxed display of his magnificent birthday suit.'
