About Nick Levitin
Welcome! I am a recently retired photographer. This site is a collection of some of my photography work over the years and my newfound interest in painting and sculpture.
When I was a kid, we didn't have a TV. My window on the world was Life Magazine. It was the photographs, taken by many of the best photographers in the world at the time, that captured my imagination.
I began using a camera seriously on a trip to Berlin in 1965, when my father bought me a 35mm Praktica camera with three lenses.
I studied acting and received my BFA from Boston University. While pursuing a career as an actor, I went on to study at the Germain School of Photography in NY.
Shortly thereafter, my camera and I became one. I began by documenting the mass gatherings in Central Park in the 1970s. Eventually, I left the theater and moved into portrait and theater production photography.
During the last several years, I returned to documentary, as well as travel photography. In addition, I have had several solo shows in Montclair, Livingston and Short Hills, NJ.
My early days in the theater inform the work I do as a photographer. I’m drawn to quiet and dramatic theatrical moments. My photographs attempt to tell a story, whether the focus is on people, or a place. The subject can be a person in the street, or a boat on the beach. Both can evoke emotions or memories and a sense of participation, or solitude.
I am fascinated by what is in the frame of the photograph –– the relationship between people and the space they occupy.
Most of my recent photographic work is in black & white. For me, there is something mysterious, sensual and engaging about a black and white photograph. That is why, more often than not, I prefer it over color. Photographer Dominic Rouse, puts it well, “Color is everything, black and white is more.”
I started painting seven months ago, and as you can see, I have much to learn! Nevertheless, I find it a particularly enjoyable pastime. In photography the task is to frame an event or person in such a way as to reveal something new, something perhaps unseen by most. This is done with light, shadow, and composition. Painting is not unlike photography, but it demands a focus on detail, on shades of color, and on the painter's ability to observe things others may not. For me photography is intense, and demanding. Painting and Sculpture relax me and they become forms of meditation.
I hope you find it worth while
