Mitch Epstein

In this film, FotoTV talked to photographer Mitch Epstein while in Germany for his 3 part photo exhibition: “American Power, The City, and Family Business”, where he discusses his career beginnings, his work as well as his world travels.

Epstein's "American Power" photographs are a result of what he calls in an artist's statement an "energy tourism" journey through America's nuclear and green energy "hot spots." He focuses on the physical evidence of America's relationship with the fuel of modern life in small towns where there are vast power stations, oil rigs, smokestacks and refineries.

The City is an eclectic look at New York City, peering through a grimy second-story window onto a bricked-up 42nd Street movie house, looking across the green expanse of Central Park at the skyline, matching scope with sophistication, spontaneity with deliberation. Epstein finds his locations in some of the most unlikely places but he never loses sight of the underlying beauty.

Epstein's Family Business, an enthralling combination of still images, video excerpts, interview texts, and his own commentary, sees the history and destiny of an American family, chronicling the decline of his father's furniture store and real estate business in Holyoke, Massachusetts.

The style of Epstein's poignant work is more of a reflection of the human condition, combining empathy with immediate social observation, politics with the majestic.