Jeff Mermelstein is an American street photographer, known for capturing very cinematic scenes in the everyday world. His work mainly consists of taking photos of people, animals, or just areas in general in New York City, and giving them a very cinematic appearance, almost looking scripted or planned.
This first piece from his series
Sidewalk from 1993 features a police officer standing outside an adult entertainment store. The officer is captured in a bright almost spot lit look, posing as he speaks to someone behind the lens and out of view. Mermelstein captures the scene and makes it appear almost as a set for a play, with the blue lights in the background and the major contrast from the figure vs the rest of the scene. The officer's facial expression looks like something out of a comedy or a TV show, almost like a screenshot right from a series.
This next image, also from his series
Sidewalk which was taken in 1996 shows a van that is on fire. It's positioned like a movie stunt, in a bright city background with plumes of smoke drifting off in one direction. It truly looks like something you'd see on the big screen, except it really happened to somebody instead. Another thing I noticed is how sparsely spread out the images in the
Sidewalk series are taken, showing how dedicated Mermelstein is to waiting to capture the perfect moment.
This last image is probably one of my favorites, taken in 1994 for the series,
Sidewalk. This image has a train conductor perfectly framed by the door of the train as he steps out. The window, being a bronzish color resembles that of a frame in gallery. Mermelstein captures the conductor's facial expression almost perfectly in the moment as well, looking almost as if he was prepared to have his portrait taken. 1 second earlier or later and this would have been a very different image.
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