With time spent away from looking at it, I’ve grown even more appreciation for the book, All Callouts is Mandatory. We’re well aware that after our review of it, we know photographers wanted it. Steve has been hard at work finishing it up, and didn’t expect so much interest. But it’s available to order, and photographers can grab a copy as they wish.
To recap, this photo book, available for purchase on the website, is incredibly important in the world of investigative journalism. Steve Ferdman spent a long time gaining the trust of these folks in order to photograph the fights. All Callsouts is Mandatory documents the evolution of a scene called Rumble in the Bronx. It started small until more money started coming in. Everyone in the scene knew each other, and so it was a giant family of sorts. People used it to settle differences and so much more. Steve often said the word family when he spoke about what he documented.
From one perspective, we can look at images and see some wild, almost cinematic times. We’re immediately thinking about Fight Club in certain shots. We can see off-duty cops hanging out, ring girls, alcohol, yachts, expensive cars, etc. It’s everything that you’d expect from a Fast and Furious movie except for the car racing.
From another perspective, readers might think that something needs to be done about this. As a native NYer, however, I’ll gladly voice that there are far bigger problems for the police to handle.
Our initial viewing of the book included lots of color images. It still has color photos, but the layout has changed and more images have been converted to black and white for effectiveness.
This book is for any budding photojournalist. It’s going to inspire anyone that wants to become one and undertake long stories to create a body of work. These photographs are art in that they’re timeless and done to encapsulate an era. They’re not content — in that it’s meant for the fleeting attention economy. While Steve doesn’t speak much to the documentary process, the work is still incredibly important because no one else has really done it. Like many others who’ve picked up a camera, Steve didn’t know much about the ethics of photojournalism — though they probably would’ve changed some of his decisions when it came to framing the story.
You can pick up All Callouts is Mandatory on Steve’s website.