Photographer Profile ~ Matt Weber

Who knows New York City better than a NYC cabbie? No one. They have seen literally everything -  from the seedy underbelly of this real life Gotham to the glam and glitz of the capital of the world.

The ubiquitous cabs in New York become virtually invisible to the citizens as they go about their daily lives. This fly on the wall existence affords one, with  the right proclivities and skill,  the opportunity to record some remarkably candid moments. 

Former cabbie Matt Weber became a street photographer after seeing some pretty crazy stuff and began to document the pulse and rhythm of the city like no other New York shooter.

"It had nothing to do with wanting to be a street photographer. I was driving a taxi and I saw so many crazy things on the street that I kept saying, “Damn, I’ve got to buy a camera.” Driving a taxicab in 1978 on the night shift at four in the morning in mid- town, if you saw the movie Taxi Driver, that was the world that was out there. There were prostitutes on the corner, Times Square was crazy; it was a dangerous part of town. I was robbed in my taxicab at double gunpoint." ~  Matt Weber

Very few taxi drivers went up to Harlem. I chose to go up to Harlem because I couldn’t disrespect someone and not take them there unless they looked like they’d rob me. I saw some crazy things: knife fights, people having sex on the streets, and all of a sudden I was like, wow, I better get a camera. Then, once I got one, I was constantly looking around and people were like, “This taxi driver can’t keep his eyes on the road!”  ~ Matt Weber

  

 

 

 

 

 

17 Year Old Stanley Kubrick: Life in New York

The Museum of the City of New York has presented a new reading of the work of one of the 20th century’s great masters of storytelling by displaying, for the first time, a photographic archive of more than 120 stills shot by Kubrick for the general interest magazine Look from 1945 – when he was a 17-year-old high-school graduate from the Bronx – to 1950.

 The commissioned stories range from profiles of celebrities such as Montgomery Clift to photo essays on urban life, such as A Day in the Life of a Shoeshine Boy.

 A new book published by Taschen accompanies the exhibition, which coincides with the 50th anniversary of Kubrick’s cult science-fiction film 2001: A Space Odyssey.

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Through a Different Lens: Stanley Kubrick Photographs is at the Museum of the City of New York until October 28, 2018. Entrance is free