My interest in photographing shoe repairmen stems from years of
encountering these artisans in various Brooklyn neighborhoods.

Using a 4x5 view camera, I made environmental portraits of these
immigrant businessmen, photographing their tools, machines, and shop
interiors. In an age where we replace usable cell phones with sleeker
models and throw away millions of plastic bags, the idea of repairing
an object is becoming antiquated. I truly believe that these men are
doing a noble job, and that in a Utopian Brooklyn, more people would recognize the integrity in mending. It is for this reason that I feel a sense of urgency in documenting these repairmen’s craft. Deciphering and sharing their experiences rightfully celebrates their lives and enriches our own sensibilities.

Joe Garazzo, over 80 years old, was born in Italy and ran a storefront in Park Slope for 50 years. When his original shop on Carroll St. was threatened by foreclosure, the local nonprofit Fifth Avenue Committee helped purchase the building, find Joe a new space during its renovation, and offer Joe highly subsidized rents, because of his status as a “neighborhood fixture,” according to the Daily News. Yet his story “is hardly typical of what's happening to local service businesses being forced out by rising rents in rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods around Brooklyn.” Mysteriously, Joe’s shop closed just a few months after I photographed him.

- Lindsay Blatt