Lou Bernstein

Lou Bernstein (born Judah Leon Bernstein; February 28, 1911 – August 2, 2005) was an American photographer and teacher.

His career began during the Great Depression and the Photo League and ended shortly before he died.

Bernstein grew up on the Lower East Side of New York City, the oldest son of Jewish immigrants from Romania.

Like many of his contemporaries, Bernstein was forced to leave school—in his case, Seward Park H.S.—to help support his family after his father was injured.

After selling candy and men's clothing accessories on the streets of New York City for two years, he joined Borrah Minevitch's original Harmonica Rascals (Bernstein had taught himself to play the harmonica when he was seven), a group that toured the country, playing one-night stands wherever they could find work.

After two years on the road, he returned to New York City, where he met Mildred Marder and married her a year later, in 1931.

Needing to find a way of supporting himself and his wife, he began studying iron drafting and received a diploma on April 14, 1933, from The General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen of the City of New York.

Because of the Depression, he was never able to find employment in this field.

Instead, he began working in the Brooklyn shipyards, which he did for over ten years.

In 1937, after the birth of their first child, Millie gave Lou his first camera, "an Argus A2 without a rangefinder" just to take pictures of their new daughter.

Bernstein learned how to take pictures from a friend, Benny Friedman, in exchange for teaching him how to play the harmonica.

It did not take Bernstein long to join the Brooklyn Camera Club, his first interaction with others with his interest in photography.

However, he found their approach to photography far "too pedagogical."

He sought out Sid Grossman and the Photo League in 1940.

"Sid helped me find out exactly what sort of work I wanted to do."

Even more than at the Brooklyn Camera Club, Bernstein had the opportunity to meet other, like-minded photographers who gravitated to their own neighborhoods, the people and places they knew best, to find their subject matter.

This approach served him well.

As far as he was concerned, "...there's as much variety in my own back yard as there is in a thousand miles of travel."

For the next sixty years, Bernstein continued to photograph in a few selected locations, all within the confines of New York City, returning to them time after time, in search of something better than he had done before.

He maintained his relationship with the Photo League, and in particular with Sid Grossman over the years.

Even after Grossman resigned from the League, Bernstein continued to attend classes in his teacher's home.

Unwilling to turn "professional," i.e., make his living from paid assignments, yet feeling the need to become more involved in the photographic community, Bernstein began working in the darkroom department at Peerless Camera, then one of the largest photographic supply emporiums in New York City.

He worked there from 1945 to 1958 and later at Willoughby's (when the two competitive store merged) until his retirement in 1973.

From his perch behind the counter, Bernstein got to meet hundreds of photographers, from rank beginners to notable photographers Edward Steichen, W. Eugene Smith, and Ernst Haas.

His position gave him the opportunity to keep abreast of the latest technical developments and to pass on what he had learned.

Customers came to him for service and advise, from what to buy to where to find a job in a photo lab.

Without knowing it, Bernstein was laying the groundwork for his later career as a teacher and c.

Bernstein's decision not to accept photographic assignments kept him close to his family, within the confines of New York City.

It meant that he could choose to photograph what interested him.

However, it seriously limited the amount of time he could devote to his pursuit.

In typical Bernstein fashion, he turned a negative into a positive: "The way I work, two or three days a week is enough. When I photograph, I give it everything I've got. I get excited and wrought-up. And I get pooped. Like I say, a couple of days a week – good solid days I mean – is usually all that I'm good for."

His approach never varied.

He would find an area, a subject matter that interested him, and he would return to it almost obsessively for an inordinate amount of time.

Over a period of time, he would get to know the place and the people involved, whether they were the marginalized men who lived at the Fulton Fish Market or the staff at the New York Aquarium.

He would photograph for several hours, return home, and process his film.

He would print and re-print his best images, constantly trying—even years later—to make the best possible photograph.

Bernstein stated that he first began photographing in the Aquarium at Coney Island in 1960; he kept returning there until after the year 2000—a project of over forty years in duration.

Over a lifetime a work, Bernstein created a series of projects, all taken in close proximity to where he lived.

Sid Grossman's approach to photography was critical to Bernstein's development both as an artist and as a mentor to others.

His one-man show at The Queens Museum of Art in 1989, entitled "Coney Island 1943-1987," included photographs taken in this one small area of Brooklyn over a forty-year period.