Maybe it’s his growing up in the pre-hipster Brooklyn and the years living in Manhattan, but photographer Burt Allen Solomon’s keen observations of the everyday of urban life are outstanding.
Solomon is a compelling visual storyteller and the street photography is one chapter in the many stories he tells. I have been studying these stories closely these recent years: Solomon, born in 1944, is often exhibited, had a major show at the Derfner Judaica Museum, has two self-published, hard-cover monographs, and has appeared in Black & White Magazine.
Locally, he’s been featured at South Orange’s Pierro Gallery, is a fixture at West Oranges’ JCC Gaelen juried exhibits and is currently enjoying a 16-piece, one-man show at the JCC Little Gallery. He is also currently one of 70 SOMAArts artists on display at SOPAC’s Unveiled exhibition and part of their upcoming Nov. 1-2 Studio Tour SOMA.
Back to the street photography. Solomon re-envisions the everyday into the extraordinary. Twin sisters, little girls, maybe about to start a game of pattycake, charm like the works of Helen Levitt. London, England 1968 captures a woman walking down a London Street nonchalantly feeding two pigeons perched on her shoulder. Or maybe it’s his trio (Oslo, Norway 1972) of equally nonchalant boys looking down an urban street–Solomon has us rethink the passing parade.
Solomon never went to art school. He studied history at Brooklyn College, received his LL.B from Harvard Law School and continues to practice part-time. He cites his father Jack Solomon, a printer and outstanding amateur photographer as his strongest influence.
“My father had a darkroom in our Brooklyn garage,” he said. Solomon, who has amassed a major collection of photography books, also spent a lot of time in the old Museum of Modern Art’s 6th floor photography galleries.
Solomon reveals geometries and abstract patterns in the lights and darks, the sunlit and the shadowed be it in structures, seascapes, landscapes or his cityscapes including Unveiled’s New York, New York 2000.
“Alice (Solomon’s charming wife; she paints and makes jewelry) and I were walking along the Hudson north of the George Washington Bridge with a niece who lived nearby,” said Solomon about New York, New York 2000. “There was snow on the ground and I saw the picture.” Note how he frames the bridge amid the line of trees, how the trees cast patterns on the snow.
A Solomon photograph of the Eiffel Tower reveals details usually overlooked. I turned the photograph sideways, upside down and right side up. Every orientation worked.
Hikers both, the Solomons have traveled the world from the U.S. national parks, the capital cities of Europe to North Africa, the Middle East and the Far East. Solomon knows when he needs color, as with his street scenes capturing the vibrant colors of Thailand.
His photographs have revelatory depth of field and clarity of detail. One of Solomon’s photos on exhibit at the JCC is of South America’s Iguazu Falls, (Iguazu National Park. Argentina, from Foz do Iguaçu (Iguaçu Falls), Brazil 2025). It metaphorically took my breath away. It took Burt’s breath away more literally: “I saw the other side of the falls where I had to get that view,” Solomon said. It was a major undertaking to get there. Solomon cinematically captures the majesty of the falls and the specificity of the water. “It seems now that photographers shoot moving water and go for the blur. I don’t like the blur.”
Solomon sometimes turns to his digital camera. But he is decidedly old school: his camera of choice is analog—a Pentax 6×7. He shoots mostly in black-and-white film and develops and prints his own gelatin silver prints in his home darkroom. (His great-niece Clover Rosenberg, a recent Columbia High School graduate, until recently aided with developing, too).
My husband Bob DeVos, a jazz guitarist and amateur photographer, and I spent a September afternoon on the Solomon patio, studying his works up close and talking gear — especially that old-school Pentax 6×7.
“It weighs as much as some of my guitars,” DeVos said.
It takes 10 exposure, 56×77 mm film frame size (most film is 36x24mm) which doesn’t come cheaply. “I don’t actively seek buyers for my prints, but I am sold at gallery exhibits, including locally at The Framing Mill and Chutzpah Kitchen (Maplewood, both),” Solomon said. Sales help defray the expenses of film and occasional commercial developing.
Solomon might use an auxiliary light meter to help determine the ideal aperture (aperture controls depth of field and light) and shutter speed for the image he seeks. Often, he relies on experience, an uncanny eye, and steady hands: “I have a tripod but rarely use it,” Solomon said. “It would mean too much additional weight. You can’t stop to set up a tripod when doing street photography. You have one chance and then the moment is gone.”
Again, it’s film, ten shots per roll. You are not rapidly taking multiple digital images. Framing the image is crucial. Solomon has been framing the exactly right shot for decades. The images accompanying this column date from 1968, 2000, 2019, and 2025. Dates are integral to his identifications, but the years of his photographs don’t really matter. His masterful vision flows back and forth in time.
Learn More, See More
Meet him and spend time with his exhibit and collections of works at Maplewood’s 1978 Art Center.
