Back in 1977, photographer Stephen Shames begun documenting a group of boys growing up in the gritty Bronx borough in New York City.
The project, which started out as an assignment for Look Magazine, turned into a life-long fascination which endured until 2000.
His stark, intensely personal black-and-white photographs capture their coming of age amid the poverty and derelict surroundings of one of the roughest neighborhoods in America.
Whether huddled in bed or hanging out on stoops, the expressions of joy by his young subjects are at once touching and deeply intimate, showing how love and humanity can co-exist alongside drugs, violence and gangs.
“The interplay between good and evil; violence and love; chaos and family are the themes—but this is not documentation. There is no ‘story line’. There is only a feeling.”
His images are now published in a book titled Bronx Boys which will be released by University of Texas Press this October.
A collection of vintage prints will be exhibiting from 6 to 15 November, 2014, at the Steven Kasher Gallery in New York City.
View more photographs here, and consider checking out the exhibition if you’re in town.
[via Flavorwire, images via Stephen Shames and Flavorwire]