Harry Lapow - Coney Island photographs

Harry Lapow was an award-winning New York City package designer when he was given a camera for his 43rd birthday. The year was 1952. From then until his death three decades later, he saw the world through a view-finder, finding beauty in what could have been deemed grotesque, seeing form where others noticed only function. On one of his first outings, Lapow came across an Italian wedding on the beach in Coney Island, taking a photograph that was later selected by Edward Steichen for the Museum of Modern Art's "Family of Man" exhibition. Perhaps first and best, Lapow loved Coney Island, returning frequently over the thirty years of his career as a photographer, walking the beach and boardwalk, stealing glances, taking shots. When Harry Lapow died in September of 1982 he was still working.