Joseph Szabo: Jones Beach
Overview
Teaching high school in suburban Long Island from 1972-1999 has given photographer
Joseph Szabo a front row seat on the fascinating rites and rituals in the life of the
American teenager. “My general rule was no drugs and no sex but right on with rock ʻnʼ
roll,” says Szabo. Necking, smoking, hanging out and preening for the camera, the
insolent, vulnerable, aggressive, lonely kids captured in Szaboʼs sexy, intimate black
and white series Jones Beach testify to the complex, often contradictory nature of that
time of life. Szabo captures the bravado, but also the haunting vulnerability and
insecurity of teenagers. Photographing the students in their bedrooms, at school
dances, in the classroom or cruising in their cars was initially a way for Szabo to get to
know his unruly high school photography students. “I became a better teacher because I
was tuned into their lives” says Szabo. By turning the lens on his students he captured
their attention and won worldwide recognition from fans including Sofia Coppola (who
used his images as an important visual reference in her 1999 debut film The Virgin
Suicides), and the adoration of the fashion crowd including Juergen Teller, Terry
Richardson and Bruce Weber. Early on Szabo took the advice of famed photojournalist
Cornell Capa that “you have to like people and you have to let them know you like
them.” Szaboʼs exceptional tenderness in penetrating other worlds and capturing the
sublime in the seemingly ordinary has extended to his other projects documenting the
crowds at one of the busiest beaches in the world, Long Islandʼs Jones Beach and a
project documenting Long Islandʼs terminally ill.