The image shows a man in a three-piece suit dancing within a circle at a March 1976 wedding in Rockville Centre, NY. The bride was Elaine Sherman, mother of Rhonda. Mrs Sherman was marrying for the second time and the dancer was the husband's son-in-law. The photographer captured the moment with a wide-angle lens and head-on flash to light subjects like stage lighting. The photographer's mother Sunny appears partially at the left. The photograph helped secure an artist grant that funded a Jewish New York documentary project in 1978–79. A class with Bob Adelman led to attending the Coyote Hookers' Masquerade Ball and deepening club-scene photography.
All the way to the left of the picture is a woman with just part of her face showing that's my mom, Sunny, who was friendly with Elaine. I wonder now how I came to be looking down at the guy, because I'm only 5ft 1in. Was I standing on a stool or a chair? I doubt I'd have done that. I must have been holding the camera at some elevation. Usually I ask permission to take a picture, but people knew I was photographing.
He told me about a Valentine's Day party at New York's Copacabana nightclub: the Coyote Hookers' Masquerade Ball. Coyote was an acronym for Cast Off Your Old Tired Ethics, and I went dressed as a girl scout and talked my way in with my camera. Since moving to New York in my early 20s in 1975, I'd spent a lot of time exploring and photographing the club scene, but that one really got me
This photograph is named Man in a Three-piece Suit Dancing Within the Circle at a Wedding, Rockville Centre, NY, March 1976. The bride was Elaine Sherman, mother of my friend Rhonda, who I'd known since seventh grade. Mrs Sherman was getting married for the second time and the dancing man was the husband's son-in-law, though I don't remember his name or what he was dancing to. As the title says, it's a circle dance, where people get into the middle and do their thing.
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