Harold Feinstein

Harold Feinstein is now seen as a pioneer in both street photography and scanography

- Oliver Atwell

Harold Feinstein was 15 when he first picked up a camera. The youngest of five children, he lived with his Jewish immigrant parents in Coney Island, New York. One day, the boy borrowed a Rolleiflex camera from a neighbour and began taking photographs on the beaches and boardwalks of his native Coney Island. Over the next few years he would spend hours stalking the sand and piers of South Brooklyn searching for subjects. Feinstein had a talent for homing in on the small dramas and narratives of everyday life. Every image he took, all of which featured careful framing and striking yet relatable characters, seemed to suggest some story that sat within the cultivated world of the composition. He moved comfortably between visual languages: some images straddle the border of street photograph