Guardian Angels
Guardian Angels

NEW YORK DAYS 1978-1984

Welcome to the hillerphoto website. It includes 50 years of work beginning with New York Days, where I grew up. 

A few months before the pandemic changed our world I did a massive edit & scanning of the black and white negatives in my archive. The New York material from 1978-1984 stood out and I began a project with nine chapters that include: The Guardian Angels, Harlem (before gentrification), the Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn and New York's longest subway line: The “A” Train. 

When I returned to New York in 1978, from two years in Brazil I found a rent-controlled apartment on the Upper West Side, close to the neighborhood where I was born before our family moved to Brooklyn.This was during the days of disco and the American hostage crisis in Iran. The Apple Macintosh computer had not yet been invented. 

Most parts of the city had yet to be gentrified. New York was going through hard times and still feeling the effects of the 1975 fiscal crisis. People were afraid to ride the subways and it was common to see apartment doors with all kinds of elaborate locks. Mine had a steel bar rigged diagonally to the floor. We were still living in an analog world then. It would be another 20 years before the industry went digital. Most of my commercial assignments were shot in color but like many photographers of my generation, I loved photographing in black & white. Color was a distraction. 

I don’t take my two eyes for granted. Photography has helped me make sense of the world. It’s provided meaning, perspective, and much joy in my life. After close to fifty years it still does. When I think back, I can’t imagine who I’d be today if I hadn’t found photography. 

CHECK OUT THE NEW YORK DAYS IBOOK ON THE APPLE IBOOK SITE 

 

BOOK, EXHIBITS, EVENTS

January 2021- Portland Bike Project- BBC News 

January 2017- Bus 75: Hidden Portland feautured onthe BBC News 

November 2016- Bus 75: Hidden Portland feautured on Ctty Lab/ The Atlantic 

October 14 - December 18, 2016- Bus 75: Hidden Portland exhibit at Concordia Universty, Portland, Oregon. Artist talk on November 7th at 7 pm @ Hagen Campus Center 

September 2016 - Bus 75: Hidden Portland feautured on the Smithsonian Magazine Instagram Feed  

Pro Photo Supply article about the Bus 75: Hidden Portland project 

June 14- September 14, 2016- Exhibit of Bangladesh Project Photographs, San Francisco Airport Museum Gallery, Terminal 2 Departures - Level 2 - Pre-Security 

May 23, 2016 - Bus 75: Hidden Portland Blog goes live.  

April 7, 2016- Artist Talk at the Ft Wayne Museum of Art, Indiana. 

March 11- May 29, 2016 Solo Exhibition of Daybreak in Myanmar at the Ft Wayne Museum of Art. 

October 8, 2015- Talk at Seattle Asian Art Museum at 7 pm as part of the Asia and Photography Program Series. 

June 2015- Artist talk at Hand-Eye Supply, Portland OR 

May 2015- Talk at Columbia College, Chicago IL 

March 2015 — SF Bay Area book talks 

Thurs March 12, SF Camerawork Gallery 6pm. 

Sun March 15, Myanmar Community & Cultural Center, Union City 5-7 pm. 

Weds March 18, Book Passage bookstore, Corte Madera 7 pm. 

February 2015 — Portland Pro Photo Supply photo exhibit extended. 30 large-format prints. 

January 2015 — Artist talk and book signing at the American Center in Yangon on Januray 17, 5-7 pm. Artist talk and book signing at the Brtitish Council in Yangon on Januray 19. 

December 2014 — Book talk and signing at Powell's Books in Portland on Dec 4 First Thursday and exhibit ongoing throughout the month.  

November 2014 — Photographer's talk at the Annenberg Space for Photographyin Los Angeles on Nov 13. 

October 2014—Exhibit of large-format prints at Pro Photo in Portland Oct 1-Dec 31 with first Daybreak in Myanmar book signing event on Oct 23.  

September 2014 — Advance copies arrived! Travel to NYC for Photoville and the Art Book Fair. 

July 2014 — We have completed design and production of the book Daybreak in Myanmar. It's going to be larger in size and scope than originally planned. Books will be in the USA by late October. 

October 2013 —The Burma Book Project is funded and featured on NPR and Huffington Post.September 2013 —Burma Book Projectnow on Kickstarter. Please spread the word. 

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July 2013 — Edited work from Pakistan to add to the website. 

June 2013 — Road trip in Uzbekistan to document life along the Silk Road. 

May 2013 — Went to Pakistan on a Fulbright Specialist Grant to teach photography at the National College of Arts in Islamabad, and Lahore. Created Inside Pakistan blog. 

April 2013 — My report in the Irrawaddy about the violence that erupted last week in the central Burmese town of Meiktila. 

March 2013 — Just back from another trip to Myanmar. This time I focused on smaller towns in the middle section of the country. Outside of Yangon daily life still seems frozen in time. Political and economic changes are proceeding slowly. 

In January 2013 this new website goes live, a redesign which features all of my work in one place, a selection of over 700 images, multimedia web documentaries, video footage, and some of my older black and white projects.  

In February 2012 I went back to Burma for a month, before the elections. This was just six months after I went there to teach photojournalists in 2011. There are 150 new images from these two visits. View a photo essay of the work in Foreign Policy Magazine.  

I was in Cambodia for the month of December 2011 on a Fulbright Specialist Fellowship teaching at the Royal University of Phnom Penh. I completed a story about the New World Housing Development in Phnom Penh. 

An exhibit of my photographs from Bangladesh entitled 'Everyday Life in a Megacity' will be up at the Adell McMillan Gallery at the University of Oregon in Eugene from September 1 till October 31, 2011. I'll be giving an artist's talk on October 6th. 

Back from Burma, July 2011- see my photos in the blog Myanmar Days from the writer, Linda Sladek. 

In Fall 2010 I was in India and Bangladesh. The new site featuring work from Mumbai, Calcutta and South India is live. 

Check out the Bangladesh Project and the blog Banglaphoto that both document my nine months in Dhaka, Bangladesh on a Fulbright.