A photo by Jon M. Anzalone

Themes of isolation and separation run through the photography of Jon M. Anzalone. Often, the urban areas captured in his work are devoid of people. When there is another person, they serve to heighten those feelings. These figures will generally be silhouetted, facing away from the viewer, or engaged in acts that serve as the vehicle of expression, like running away from the camera. “I only take pictures of ideas of people,” Anzalone says.

Anzalone takes the majority of his shots while traveling. “There’s a certain anxiety when you’re in a new place. You don’t know where you are or where you’re going. It heightens your senses and you notice things you might not otherwise see.”

The images frequently have a snapshot quality — quick takes on daily life. But these sights are transformed through his lens. His mood and ideas are imprinted onto that, removing the scenes from their original context. And once the viewer forms an impression of the photographs, the process is complete.

This approach is central to his thinking: “There’s three points that make art: where it is, the artist themselves, and the viewer. The art doesn’t exist until it’s been viewed and they respond to it.”

Some extreme circumstances laid the foundation for the first two points of the Distance series. Anzalone was living happily in Mumbai, India, when the 2008 terror attacks occurred, hitting places he frequented. “The night before, I remember thinking, ‘Wow, I feel at home here.’” But he was forced to leave the country and his girlfriend behind. So he wandered about Europe with all that floating in his mind. “I was looking for something, but I didn’t know what it was,” the artist recalls. “But my eyes were open and I found something else. It was one of the worst times in my life but it led to my best work.” This collection was on display at Bushwick Open Studios. (He also contributes to Hooplahoop.com, a new online publication created by others in the BOS show.)

A hazy grit informs the texture of most of these works, and may be a result of his early works with a Holga camera. Indeed, a couple of the pictures from Distance were taken with one. But most of them were taken using an old Voigtländer Vito CL, which he bought at a thrift store and continues to use to this day. “It feels like I have a bond with this camera,” he relates. Anzalone started shooting five years ago.

His next project, which would be his first fully conceived project, is to go to Cairo, Egypt, and fill up 24 rolls of film in 24 hours. “It will be maddening, trying to find all of those photos in a city I barely know. And I want that to be the driving force.” He hopes to go during Ramadan, the Muslim holy month. Part of the goal is to capture day-to-day life in an Islamic culture.