Thesis/Background

For the final project, I chose to look at Larry Fink’s Social Graces. This photo-book has two sections depicting two different types of parties, ones of the rich residents of New York and then ones held in rural Pennsylvania. Fink had many leftist and radical views, and in this book, they can be seen manifesting through the ways he depicts the affluent and the not. What I find particularly interesting is the theme that he chooses to highlight his views. By using the party setting for both groups, the differences in both quality and enjoyment are clear to see. Fink himself described in the introduction of this photo-book that one of the driving forces motivating him to pursue photography as a whole was “deep social commitment combined with a genius for reaching through to the essence of human experience.” (Social Graces, 3)

Fink was raised in Brooklyn, then moved to Long Island, but he became very involved with the more radical thinking of the time. His personal bias is clearly seen in this book, but in a more subtle way, through his choice to take all of the photos in black and white. This book was published in 1984, but most of the photographs were taken in the 1970s. Even with access to colored film, Fink’s purposeful monotone film was in a way, an equalizer between the two groups. Because while they might be on opposite sides of the social class spectrum, this is one thing they have in common. 

There are many different ways that I can go about discussing this photo-book and Fink’s work as a whole. I can examine the amount of happiness in each group’s parties, in which I can look at the photo on page 15 at the English Speaking Union vs the photo on page 76 of a man at Pat Sabatine’s Eighth Birthday Party. I could look at how gender and age are present throughout this photo-book and possibly cite interesting photographs like the ones on pages 24 and 68. I could also compare the filter values of each group that Fink captured in photos like the ones on pages 33 and 58. Or I could just look at the fact that Fink returned to the same rural community for graduations and birthdays of the same people year after year, effectively capturing children growing up. There are many different and interesting outlooks, and I am very excited to be exploring this photo-book further.