Harvey Stein took up photography in 1970 as an antidote to a suffocating job in the corporate world. Although self-taught, he took classes when he could and his first teacher, Ben Fernandez, advised him to get a Leica with a 21 mm lens and head to Coney Island.

Stein was hooked on his first visit and for more than 40 years he hit the boardwalk, the pier, the beach and the amusements at all seasons. First and always a street photographer, he celebrates life as lived in the moment, mainly recorded on black-and-white film. “Being in Coney Island is like stepping into a culture, rather than just experiencing a day’s entertainment,” he said in a presentation at the New York Public Library last summer. “There’s a sense of excitement, adventure, the thrill and escape from daily worries, and much pleasure, whether riding the jarring Cyclone roller coaster, walking the boardwalk, watching the mind-bending Mermaid Parade, or just sunbathing on the beach. Coney Island is an American icon, a fantasy land of the past with a seedy present and an irrepressible optimism about its future.

 “Coney Island is about people,” he continued. “All sizes, shapes, races, ages, religions, behaviors. The amusements, the sea, the open air, the sun and sand all impart a kind of freedom of behavior that I don’t see anywhere else. And I am interested in the contradictions and ironies present in its social world. I am always impressed with how we all get along at Coney Island. There isn’t anywhere else like it and that’s much of its attraction.”

Selections from Coney Island | 40 Years are currently on view at the Kreps Gallery/Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University through the end of October. 1317 E. Pettigrew Street, Durham, NC. Above: The Hug, © Harvey Stein.

On Thursday, September 20^th, there will be an artist’s talk and book signing at 6 pm. Stein will teach a workshop on Documentary Street Photography at CDS September 21–23, 2012. Register $285.

Signed copies of Coney Island | 40 Years (Schiffer) are available from Alan Klotz Gallery.

Harvey Stein has taught at the International Center of Photography since 1976. His photographs are in the permanent collections of the George Eastman House, the Art Institute of Chicago,Bibliothèque Nationale, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and many other institutions.