BOOK: ALL DAY EVERY DAY
BY WALL DONE, 07/05/2013
TITLE: All Day Every Day
AUTHOR: David Armstrong
PUBLISHER: Scalo
Mr. Armstrong is a photographer best known for his classically posed portraits of men, some of which appeared in the 1995 Whitney Biennial, and, more recently, for what he calls his ''fuzzy-wuzzy'' landscapes and cityscapes, blurred portraits of places that have been collected in a book, ''All Day Every Day,'' published by Scalo.
Mr. Armstrong moved back to New York in 1997. He bought his house for $300,000 after living in a house across the street for the previous two years. It was the closest he has lived to Manhattan in nearly a decade. ''My first reaction was how brutal New York was,'' he said. ''I found it incredibly harsh. Then I started wandering around Fort Greene, Crown Heights and finally, Bed-Stuy. It's such a contained and safe world. A lot of my neighbors have spent their whole lives here.''
What Mr. Armstrong found was a community of fiercely proud homeowners, many of whom are leery of the perils of gentrification. As a gay white male in a predominantly African-American neighborhood, Mr. Armstrong was acutely aware that his presence might appear to herald a change in the area. Still, he said, ''my neighbors have been incredibly kind.''
Bits of that area are chronicled in ''All Day Every Day''.
All images © David Armstrong
