Collection: Bill Bernstein

For internationally celebrated portrait and documentary photographer Bill Bernstein, photography is anthropology. Since beginning his career at The Village Voice in the 1970s, his methodology has been one of researching and representing contemporary cultures and sub-cultures through photography.

The breadth of Bernstein’s career has been spent peeking into contemporary tribes—including New York City’s late 1970's notorious night scene and a 15 year span touring at Paul McCartney’s side as his personal photographer—and apprehending their unseen dynamics, as well as the subtleties of his individual subjects’ lives.

Bernstein was honored to be invited to speak at the Library of Congress in 2017 on his work during the unique and magical bubble of time of the late 1970's in New York City where he focused attention on the night clubs and discos where inclusion and freedom of expression reigned in it's full glory. This was a special time after Stonewall and pre-AIDS, where the manifestation of sexual liberation, Women’s Liberation, Civil Rights and equality was on display in the clubs and on the dance floor throughout the night. He lives and works in New York City, his hometown.