I spent much of the day Thursday putting together a video of George Forss talking about his impending Kickstarter project “The Way We Were.” We started at the Round House Cafe but it was noisy there, we retreated to a hallway then to his gallery. Self-promotion does not come naturally to George, he is never quite at ease talking about himself. It was like pulling teeth at times, but I think we got it out of him.
I’m too close to George in some ways, too close to this story, so Maria is going to edit the video. This is a major moment in George’s life. This is George’s time returning. His powerful photos of pre-911 New York have never been released, never been published, they show us what was really lost when those towers went down, they capture our greatest city at a particular point in its time and glory.
Most of George’s magnificent landscapes show the Twin Towers looming over the city, after they fell George was horrified, at a loss, he withdrew his powerful images of the lost world of New York from the public eye, he left the New York part of his life behind and concentrated on his gallery, his new photography and his love of the artist Donna Wynbrandt. Before he moved to upstate New York, George had become one of the world’s most acclaimed urban landscape photographers, he never quite knew what to do with fame, he left it behind.
His work remains in the imagination of many in the city and of many photographs. Ansel Adams called his work “genius,” now that genius can be shared. George is seeking $8,200 to self-publish his lost photographs, “The Way We Were,” and perhaps some of his fame as well. Digital photography swept away much of the old photographic world, it left many of the masters behind. If you look at George’s work, you see right away that there are many things even the Iphone cannot do. One is capture the majesty and wonder of New York City. Tonight we hope to finish the video and tomorrow morning I hope to help George launch it live on Kickstarter, a crowdsourcing site that helps artists follow their dreams. This is George’s dream. I hope some of you will help George reclaim his magnificent lost work and share it with the world.
The Round House Cafe has agreed to host a fund-raiser for George in the next two weeks, we will all get this done, it is George’s moment.