“I surely am pursuing happiness with my camera. When I take pictures of children, I’m not trying to capture their cuteness or emerging beauty .I seek to capture the essence of childhood. I see the child as a chrysalis of a future adult.”
~ Martin Elkort
I love Marty’s line here: “I see the child as a chrysalis of a future adult.” He really captured it perfectly. The body language of the two children says it all—the girl appears a little nervous, and the boy, though projecting confidence and coolness, betrays his own nerves with legs twisted like a pretzel. Coney Island was, and still is, a refuge for so many New Yorkers looking to escape the city’s pressures and, in summer, its unbearable heat. Like other neighborhoods across the city, a genuine sense of community thrived there in the 1950s, when this image was taken.
