I’ve never been to Coney Island before, although I picture it exactly as described in Mitch Albom’s ‘The Five People You Meet In Heaven’. It’s a neglected seaside throwback to yesteryear, littered with fried foods, faded paint, wooden roller coasters and maybe a freak show. The kind of decrepit place our parents once spent the best summers of their lives, costing no more than a nickel a day. Compared to the endless lineups and triple helix corkscrew coasters of today’s corporate sponsored monster parks, it just can’t compete. But that doesn’t mean Coney Isle has lost all it’s luster, as photographer Peter Granser demonstrates, it’s the people that provide the color to this otherwise pale playground.
Granser’s photographs of Coney Island, taken between 2000 and 2005, capture the offbeat, derelict, wacky, “wonderful morbid charm” of this democratic paradise. In a series of sun-bleached images, he playfully shows us how this century-old pleasure garden has aged into the present day. Best of all are the images of park frequenters and old treasure hunters, who add to the personality of their bizarre surroundings. The Coney series has been awarded multiple prizes in past years and was presented at biannual festivals and group exhibitions at home and abroad. Be sure to check out this, as well as Granser’s other critically acclaimed projects: Sun City, and Alzheimer.
