Andy Sweet’s Shtetl in the sun

Andy Sweet was a Jewish American photographer born on November 9, 1953 in Miami Beach, Florida. His grandfather was one of the founding members of his local temple, where he had his bar-mitzvah. His father was a municipal judge in Miami and his uncle ran many hotels there as well. Sweet attended the University of Colorado in fine arts and spent the following years after graduation taking photos of people and places in Miami Beach along with his friend he met while in college.

  

Unfortunately, in 1982 at the age of 28 years old, Sweet was murdered. However, his work had begun to be recognized by then and it focused heavily on the Jewish elderly community that was disappearing in Miami, many of them Holocasut survivors. This emphasis in his work is no surprise as this is where he grew up, and the community he documents is one he likely relates to and is a part of. Sweet wants to preserve the memory of a particular era, that of senior Jews residing in South Beach, before it is gone forever. I can relate to this on a personal level as my grandparents live in Florida as well and are part of a Jewish Community there.

The three photographs above epitomize the way I see Andy Sweet as an artist and as a photographer. Each picture with its own distinct qualities but tied together with a similar narrative. They are all clearly taken with the same style: level, head on, colorful, and vibrant. Furthermore, they include the subjects that the vast majority of Sweet’s work consists of: elderly Jews in Miami.

 

Andy Sweet’s methods consisted almost entirely of the elderly residents of Miami Beach. His work includes a mix of staged and candid pictures. He also utilizes color as well as black and white photography. Much of Sweet’s work is centered or flat, and by that I mean not angled or on a titl, although there are exceptions. He appears to take many of his photos in a very matter-of-fact way. He does not attempt to make the objects in his work what they are not. Sweet lets his subjects be as they are. This further supports his goal of preserving the memory of this era for history.

In the images where his subjects are staged, they are always smiling which could be in an effort to cast a somewhat happy or positive glow over the period he is attempting to document and might even be a projection of his own emotions toward it. In my own attempt at replicating his style and methodology, I will take photos with my iPhone and implement filters to increase the saturation and color as well as choosing subjects such as buildings since Covid-19 has resulted in empty streets with no people to photograph.

I believe these two picture provide a good jumping off point and an example of the style I will be attempting to emulate in my own photos. More specifically, the way these picture demonstrate both the colors and angles he uses, as well as his subjects that included buildings around Miami.

 

Gallery:

     

     

      

     

      

Selected Photos:

    

Slideshow 1:

     

Slideshow 2:

     

My original approach to taking photographs using the techniques of Andy Sweet were to focus on the elderly people in my community. I wanted to get to know them like he did and take photos that were up close and personal, sometimes staged, but always conveying genuine emotions and an authentic illustration of the period. Almost all of Sweet’s work took place outside, on the beach, sidewalks, in front of buildings, at pools, etc. This was something I wanted to emulate through my own work. I felt the large elderly population in my community would be a great resource and would allow me to capture pictures and utilize Sweet’s technique with the most accuracy as possible. Unfortunately, Covid-19 was an unforeseen barrier to completing my work as intended. As a result of a complete lockdown of my city and state, as well as the senior population’s increased susceptibility to the virus, my original plan was no longer possible. Instead, I took a different approach to taking photos like Andy Sweet. I decided to focus on the high saturation style used in his work and replace the elderly with buildings as my subjects. Some of Sweet’s work did consist of hotels and other buildings, so this became a viable option. 

While attempting to recreate my own version of his work, I came across a few difficulties I had not anticipated. Firstly, to achieve the higher saturation photos, I needed to search for subjects consisting of more color than the average building. Where I live this is rare, and searching for such colors became a daunting task. However, this difficult search resulted in what I believe to be more thoughtful pictures through having to search for the perfect locations. Additionally, finding the right combinations of colors that would fit together well as a collection of work created another layer of complexity that I never expected. Secondly, once I had taken my photos, choosing the right amount of saturation and the proper tools to do so was not an easy task. The varying lighting of each picture as well as the colors in each necessitated different levels and intensities of saturation and use of the saturation tools. These tools came in the form of a number of applications downloaded onto my phone, which is what I used to capture my work. 

What made this process particularly liberating was ironically what made it a bit difficult to begin with. Since I was unable to stick with my original plan and replicate the aspects of Sweet’s work that make him so recognizable, that being the elderly Jewish community, I felt I had been pushed outside the lines a bit and given the freedom to make the photos my own more than they would have otherwise been. These constraints gave me the liberty to make my work unique, yet still capture pieces of what make Andy Sweet’s photography so great. This may have been the case either way, but I feel I was pushed a little further down the spectrum to the point where Sweet became a loose framework within which I was able to work, instead of attempting to directly map my photos onto his. 

What this taught be about Sweet’s point of view is the way he has a hyper-focus on aspects of society that many would not normally give much attention to. He has a personal connection to his work and his subjects as he grew up in the same community that ends up being the focal point of his work: the Jewish elderly of South Beach and the physical places in which they live out their lives. Conversely, Sweet’s photography style may have been his way of expressing himself while simultaneously documenting an era before it disappeared. More specifically, his use of high saturation and inclusion of bright daylight made obvious in many of his pictures in addition to straying away from sad subjects and keeping his camera pointed at both the innocent daily activities that are relatable to any viewer as well as the happier moments most people look forward to such as laying by the pool or walking down the beach taking in the sunshine. 

 

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When I first found Andy Sweet I thought of him simply as a photographer of the elderly. This is probably not surprising considering most of his work consists of the old Jewish community that resided in Miami. However, as I did more research in preparation for my own work, I discovered his art is much more than that. He uses colors and his subjects to communicate a certain aura or emotion that surrounds his pictures. That is: lightheartedness and nostalgia. I further realized the importance of his technique while capturing my own photos. Sweet’s use of bright colors substantiates his initiative to encapsulate and communicate to his viewers the positive nature of the era he is attempting to preserve. Taking my own photos also helped me to appreciate the difficulty in trying to evoke a certain emotion through inanimate art. The time in which we currently live also had an affect on my project and the way I was able to think about it. Since I am not experiencing the world in the time and place that Andy Sweet did, it limits the extent to which I can place myself in his shoes and take pictures from a similar perspective. The current physical landscape, the quality of iPhone cameras, and living in Michigan versus Miami places a wedge between his work in mine. Taking photos in the 21st century pushed me to focus on the details that I am able to control such as saturation of my photos. This ultimately led to a very unique and somewhat unintended outcome with regard to the pictures that I am happy with.

Aaron,

Good, strong conclusion. I think that you could pick up even more from some of what you wrote in your assessment and analysis of the photographs. That is, beyond the color saturation, you did make your own work unique because you gave the buildings you chose to photograph personalities, in a sense like the personalities of the elderly men and women whom Sweet photographed. By bringing them together into a slide show, you made something that was greater than the sum of its parts.

I must admit that I really liked the yellow door photograph and om cafe (more than the diner) because they possess more personality.

Please identify Sweet’s photographs in the final version of the project. You also deleted my previous comments, which I regret, because I like to refer back to them.

DDM

“About Andy Sweet.” Andy Sweet’s Miami Beach, www.andysweetphotolegacy.com/about.

“Andy Sweet Captures the Forgotten Jewish Tribe of Miami’s South Beach.” It’s Nice That, www.itsnicethat.com/articles/andy-sweet-shtetl-in-the-sun-photography-011019.

“Andy Sweet’s Miami Beach Photography.” Miami New Times, 2015, www.miaminewtimes.com/slideshow/andy-sweets-miami-beach-photography-7842599.

“Shtetl in the Sun: Works by Andy Sweet.” Cleveland Print Room, www.clevelandprintroom.com/events-1/2020/3/13/shtetl-in-the-sun-works-by-andy-sweet.

Stone, Lisa. “The Art, Death, and Life of Andy Sweet.” Lisa Stone Arts, 2014, www.lisastonearts.com/art-death-life-andy-sweet.html.