We Are Now 10: Rick Schatzberg Memorializes Old Friends In “The Boys”
When two old friends died unexpectedly, Rick Schatzberg spent the next two years photographing the remaining group of men.
Last year Eddie died of a heart attack. A death as random as a lightning strike, that makes you think there but for the grace of god.... Jon died nine months later from an overdose, an end that seemed inevitable and makes you think the grace of god is questionable at best. This fragile symmetry is not lost on us, my friends and me, though we’re less likely to discuss it than to raise a glass in their memory. Tell a story or two. Laugh.
From The Boys by Rick Schatzberg, published by Powerhouse Books.
Rick Schatzberg's childhood, teen and young adult years in 1970s Long Island were entwined with the lives of 13 other guys. The sudden loss of two of his gang was a prompt to create a photo book, a look back and and another at the present moment of friendship, aging, time. That book, The Boys, launches next month, but has already garnered praise for its poignancy. The Boys, said photographer Richard Rinaldi, "transcends the personal narrative and becomes an elegy for time’s passing and all that we hold dear."
Schatzberg, who lives in Brooklyn and Norfolk (but mostly Norfolk now), took a circuitous route to photography. From pursuing a career as a jazz musician, to working part-time in publishing, then running sales and marketing for a startup company eventually bought by Merck, he retired early and took on the househusband role. After starting up another pharmaceutical business, he “rediscovered” photography and went at it with a vengeance, taking classes at the International Center for Photography, studying at Columbia University’s photography intensive, and getting his MFA at the University of Hartford’s prestigious photography program. As part of his thesis, he needed to create a photo book, and with the death of the first of the boys, felt the need to capture their group before it was too late.
“I thought, I need to photograph all these guys while we’re still here,” Schatzberg says. “The idea resonated with these guys. Everybody was game. They’re not the most extroverted crew, so I was pleased that everybody got it.”
The author, Rick Schatzberg
In the 70s, there were 14 of them, hailing from “nowhere” — North Woodmere, Long Island — who’d known each other since kindergarten or elementary school or junior high. Schatzberg includes snapshots of the gang in post-war suburbia, all big hair, dense beards and goofy expressions. The shots serve as an introduction to each of the men and a testament to their shared history. Now looking like vintage photos, they are accompanied by Schatzberg’s poetic text.
When he started the project, another friend had died. “By the time I was done, just wrapping it up, two more guys died with six weeks,” Schatzberg says. “We are 10 now. The book is about what the death of friends signals to you. It hits you over the head in a way that catches you off guard. This project provided a good opportunity to think it through.”
Schatzberg used his large-format camera for the present-day portraits, and asked his friends to sit sans shirts. Most complied, adding another layer of revelation and intensity that only still photography can deliver. With the large format photos, the exposures are long, and the ultimate effect forces the viewer to take additional moments as well — to contemplate the reality of aging, longtime friendships, the young inside the old. They aren’t always easy to look at.
“I was curious to see how vulnerable people were willing to be,” Schatzberg explains. “People put on a mask in portraits, so I was trying to get to a point where their shields are down. These are not bodies we’re used to look at in photos. I liked the idea of making the viewer uncomfortable.” Still, as author Rick Moody writes in the afterward included inside the book’s back cover, the entire effect is terribly affecting, never less than loving.
The hybrid memoir/photo book is published by Powerhouse Books, distributed by Simon & Schuster. It includes a dozen gatefolds, each opening to reveal a portrait along with close-ups and details of the 12 men. Two area virtual book events are planned — Dec. 15 at the Oliver Wolcott Library in Litchfield and Dec. 16 at The Norfolk Library. The Boys will officially launch at a Zoom event hosted by Powerhouse Books on January 14, 2021.
We think we’re all in this together, but the winnowing advances one by one. As with Jon and Eddie, I see Brad and Fred more vividly now, my thoughts focused like images resolving on the camera’s ground glass. This sudden clarity surprises me. As petty judgements fall away, what’s left is love.
