Charles H. Traub - Lunchtime - 2015

Between 1977 and 1980, photographer Charles H. Traub (born 1945) ventured onto the streets of Chicago, New York, and various European cities to photograph their inhabitants—men and women, young and old—at lunchtime. Colorful and direct, lively and intimate, the portraits are taken close up of the subjects, seemingly composed in a spontaneous manner, focusing only on heads and shoulders. Each subject reveals something of themselves to the camera: the woman who seizes the opportunity to pose in profile with dignity or the one who purses her lips into an exaggerated pout, even the less fortunate subjects caught as they adjust their glasses or blink.
Charles H. Traub: Lunchtime is the first complete publication of these evocative color images, exhibited in the early 1980s in Chicago, New York and Milan. This volume preserves the cheerfulness and joy of the series, with vibrant pairings of photographs that encourage viewers to associate one individual with another in a new street narrative.