Boogie doesn’t do detached observation: his approach is, and always has been, incredibly direct. Renowned for his unflinching images, the Serbian-based photographer is a dedicated documentarian of street culture, offering rare access into some of the world’s most radicalised underworlds that, together, seem to be bound by the same nexus of violence, poverty and crime. It is an underrated skill to win the trust of America’s homeless youth, its addicts, gangsters and pimps, but a skill that Boogie has honed over the last decade.
Throughout his still-relatively nascent career, Boogie has published six monographs: Boogie (powerHouse Books, 2007), Sao Paulo (Upper Playground, 2008), Istanbul (Upper Playground, 2008), Belgrade Belongs to Me (powerHouse Books, 2009) and A Wah Do Dem (DRAGO, 2016). This year will mark the tenth anniversary of his first photobook, It’s All Good, which was published in 2006 and is set for reissue in December
A native of Belgrade, Boogie shot It’s All Good in some of New York’s most notorious neighbourhoods – Bushwick, Bedford-Stuyvesant and Queensbridge – capturing rare, intimate moments of heightened human emotion set against a backdrop of gritty, urban living. We see a woman shooting up crack in her bathroom, a gangster pointing a loaded gun at the camera lens and addicts sprawled on the streets. All the while a chronic racial tension can also be felt. In an unsettling time, where most of our conversations revolve around a few stark topics; uncertainty, fear, survival and personal activism, it is easy to see how the resurgence of a photobook like this kicks up a timely message.
Tapping into over a decade of clicking the shutter, we find out from Boogie how to capture honest images, how to get close to your subjects – however distanced from your life they may be – and how a relevant message can be gleaned from his debut monograph ten years on.
Comments