Sun-bright marble steps, grey Formstone turrets, and velvety shadows frame the subjects of “Baltimore Lives: The Portraits of John Clark Mayden,” a remarkable collection of black-and-white Baltimore street photography and portraiture from 1970-2012. Mayden, a Baltimore native and Northwestern High School graduate, is a practicing attorney as well as an artist. His works have been exhibited at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the BMA, the Walters, and most recently, Johns Hopkins University’s George Peabody Library. “Baltimore Lives” is his first book.
Every photo in the book holds stories, in the expression of the subject’s face, the angle of their shoulders, or the shape of their silhouette receding from the viewer. Only one of the 101 photographs in this collection is an object rather than a person: a pair of roller skates on a wooden porch, left right where the feet that wore them stopped, probably seconds before. Framed so the would-be wearer is slightly below eye level with the camera, the viewer almost sees the child who just ran off.
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