On a calm day multitudes of pigeons can be seen flying together over the rooftops of New York City’s boroughs - tornados of birds. These are not the reviled creatures of the street; they are domestic pigeons that live their entire lives on the roofs and yards of NYC, tended to and cared for daily by their owners.
I began taking photographs of pigeon flyers shortly after moving to New York in 2007. The pigeon coops that peek over my neighborhood’s rooftops and backyard fences fascinate me. Initially it was the aesthetic of the weathered structures caught my attention. Soon I began to appreciate the significance and nuance of caring for the birds and watching them in flight.
In the past there may have been thirty to forty coops in a single neighborhood of one of the five NYC boroughs. Today there are only a few. For the men who practice this vanishing sport, pigeon flying is a meditative and fulfilling practice. This series is an exploration of an isolated and shrinking community in which men are free to be nurturers and caretakers. It is a meditation on masculinity's often neglected potential.
In the series and its continuation I focus on the relationship between the men and their birds, the aesthetics of the birds, the coops, and the act of flying itself. The absorption of the men watching their birds fly communicates the stillness and peace of a religious experience and penetrate the tough exterior of these men to reveal the gentleness within. The unexpected relationship between the men and their birds suggests the inherent tenderness of humanity itself.
The work is a visual documentation of the way people in ever shrinking spaces (physical and social) stretch the boundaries of their environment.
