The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien

"When Mark Hartman turned 35 he found himself stuck in a midlife crisis. To counter the bad feelings he spontaneously decided to take the train to Coney Island, Brooklyn. What’s striking is that the pictures in Hartman’s "Island" series don’t show Coney Island at all. Not a single picture presents the iconic sites of the island close to New York City. The images could have been taken anywhere else. Instead the focus lies on the depicted people who are all quite different from each other but show a part of their soul on every photo. Hartman captures the wide range of human emotions and illustrates it with a high degree of authenticity."

by Ruth Collett

Apartment Life Magazine, 1977