“I’m young, scrappy and hungry and I’m not throwing away my shot!” – Alexander Hamilton, The Musical
HAMILTON is a cast of revolutionaries. Night after night, this band of young rebels raise their voices to the darkness in an inspiring uprising of song and spirit. They are at once our history and our future, inciting rebellion and leading the way to change.
Like the revolutionaries who embraced Alexander Hamilton’s vision for a new America, the remarkable actors in these photographs embraced Lin-Manuel Miranda’s vision for a new American musical. In doing so, they upended expectations and made us see things differently.
I captured their portraits using antique cameras and lenses. To bring a richness and timeless beauty to these images, I chose to print them in classic silver gelatin, still the gold standard for black and white printing. All in an effort to echo, in a small way, what ‘Hamilton the Musical’ so brilliantly achieves in enlivening our own history in a way that makes it so relevant and present for us today.
This is a time when history is being made in ways that our forefathers could never have imagined. It celebrates and reverberates this history eight times a week in cities across America. This is MY SHOT.
-Josh Lehrer
Artist Bios
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Josh Lehrer
Josh Lehrer’s photographs have appeared all over New York in galleries and exhibitions, as well as on billboards and in subway stations. Whether it is the chaos of homelessness, celebrity, propulsive success or projected sentiment; capturing the individual, their unique survival strengths, and the sudden discovery of calm in the center of personal storms drives Josh’s portraiture.
His clients are indie films, business leaders, Broadway blockbusters, screen stars and large commercial enterprises.
With an eye toward social justice, Josh created the series, “Becoming Visible,” focused on New York City’s fastest growing homeless population: transgender teenagers. In 2010, the first of these images premiered at the Robert Miller Gallery and have since appeared in galleries and museums all over the world. The series garnered the 2010 Photo Philanthropy award and was a centerpiece of Photoville in 2012.
Josh lives and works on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and is a graduate of Boston University’s School for the Arts and The International Center of Photography.
Organizations
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United Photo Industries (UPI)
United Photo Industries (UPI) is a New York based nonprofit organization that works to promote a wider understanding of, and increased access to, the art of photography.
Since its founding in 2011, UPI has rapidly solidified its position in the public art landscape by continuing to showcase thought-provoking, challenging, and exceptional photography from across the globe. In its first seven years, UPI has presented the work of more than 2,500 visual artists in gallery exhibitions and public art installations worldwide.
My Shot: Portraits from Hamilton, an American Musical
Featuring: Josh Lehrer
Locations
View Location Details Download a detailed map of this location Brooklyn Bridge Park – Emily Warren Roebling Plaza1 Water St
Brooklyn, NY 11201
This location is part of Brooklyn Bridge Park
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