Carol Dronsfield

Proceeds from sales will be donated to The Coney Island Polar Bear Club and The Statue of Liberty Foundation.

Lady Liberties
36 x 24
Digital photograph

Coney Island in March, a year into the pandemic, as a cold, snowy, eerily subdued winter finally begins to loosen its grip on the city. These are ordinary New Yorkers—not the ones who withdrew to warmer, safer, less crowded surroundings, but the ones who stayed, by choice or necessity or simple lack of alternatives. The boardwalk, the pier, the beach and the amusement parlors are still deep in hibernation. It’s still too cold to be here. But every day, a handful of New Yorkers arrive to inhale the faint hint of rebirth in the air, or coax a promise of warmth from the pale sunlight. Some declare their faith by baptizing themselves in the frigid surf. I spend days roaming the cold sand, trying to document these city dwellers:, their determination to distill pleasure from a still- bleak landscape, their impatience for the change of season, their sense that however far off, something better is awakening.