Jersey City 2009: The Dan McNulty Project

Jersey City 2009: The Dan McNulty Project is the culmination of my learning experience through imagery. Dan McNulty was a photographer who lived in Jersey City and photographed it from the years 1940 through 1960. The intent of his images are unclear. There is a possibility that he photographed for the purpose of real estate, but nothing has actually been documented about his life and experience with his camera. For what his images are worth, I would say he painted a good picture of what Jersey City was like at the time, for both its people and place.
My intent for this project is to forego my creative license. In throwing away my own eyes, I found new eyes, resurrected. I want to remain humbled by the fact that any image you can possibly take has already been taken. Dan McNulty’s name will live on through his photographs. In re-photographing his work, a man who I have never met and no nothing about, I feel the essence of a loud conversation. Moving the camera to be compositionally accurate means I am finding the place he actually stood almost 60 years ago. It is in this conversation that I can tell him that his photographs are not dead; they are very much living documents, and the conversation between him, myself, or anyone, can continue forever.

Time / Frame: 2009

Film Artist Statement:

Time is cyclical. It is an ever present and ever invisible force that binds you and marks your memory with chronology. It is in this way that we can begin to note changes in life, whether abrupt or long-term. Often, thinking about the past can be more satisfying than acknowledging the present. Along with the passage of time comes the inevitable wisdom and understanding of specific memories you may have had that, as they were occurring, did not, or could not, resonate.

September 11, 2001 was a moment in my life that I will never truly understand, but I am learning with time. My film is titled Time / Frame: 2009 because this is my first look back on the attacks of that day, a moment in time where I felt completely helpless—just watching from the other side of the river. On my second day of high school, when a person’s life is stereotypically riddled with irresponsibility and frivolousness, I watched my childhood soul enter the flames that engulfed Ground Zero. On this day, the world was reminded how wicked things could become, and in the years to come, we would learn how wicked things would stay. The difference between what was normal then, and what is normal now, has changed dramatically. This is a memoir. I cannot speak for the world, but I have spoken for myself.