From October 01, 2021 to October 31, 2021
As a photographer, I use a camera lens to look at the world I see around me constructing images of everyday life in the social landscape that shape our collective identity. My subjects can be described as anonymous, yet it is in the total sense they are held in suspension. My typical subject matter is the humbled everyday person familiar to us all who happens to be walking along just as well as the rest of us. Through the exploration of contemporary life in all its variety my images reveal much about my journey through discovery.
Everyone and everything has significance in itself and in relationship to its surroundings. My photographs are about the dignity, strength of character, and fortitude of the human spirit.
My long term objective is to develop and widen the work I have already done; photographing compassion and humor in the urban streets and cities of where ever I may travel, their surrounding landscapes and anonymous citizens.
Curator: Harvey Stein
Michael Ruggiero is a professional chef, street photographer and photojournalist. He is known for his humanist approach to photography working in long-term projects, such as; interstate highway truckers, Pennsylvania slate quarrymen and the Baymen of eastern Long Island.
Michael was born in and raised in San Diego, California. Using his Pentax Spotmatic, he began taking pictures when he left the US Coast Guard in 1973. He graduated from Grossmont College in 1981 with a degree in photography. In 1983 he became a press photojournalist for the San Diego Union Tribune. He discovered his passion and talent as a street photographer while traveling on multiple occasions to and from Europe between 1983-89.
Over the past 30 years, his work has been widely exhibited including the Salmagundi Art Gallery and Umbrella Arts Gallery in New York City, Heckscher Museum on Long Island, the Photo Review, All About Photography, Life Framer and Street Photography magazines, the Center for Fine Art Photography, Colorado and the East Hampton Star and East Hampton Press newspapers on Long Island.
He has been a guest speaker at The International Photography Center, NYC and the Heckscher Museum on Long Island, and self published "Over the Road" a portrait of long-haul truckers in American.
