By Julie Shapiro
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
LOWER MANHATTAN — When Bridget Fleming started taking pictures of her friends as they biked lower Manhattan’s narrow streets, she had no idea that she was beginning a years-long art project.
Soon, though, inspiration took hold, and Fleming turned the casual snapshots into a series called Downtown from Behind, which showcases downtown’s vibrant blocks and the people who inhabit them.
"New York is downtown," Fleming, 30, told DNAinfo last week. "It’s the creative core. [The photos] are about the people who make up downtown: the look, the vibe, the lifestyle, the architecture, the artists, the musicians."
Each photo features a lower Manhattan figure biking away from the camera, on one of the roughly 220 streets below 14th Street.
Fleming has captured about 100 of the streets so far and hopes to complete the series by next May, when she wants to exhibit the photos and possibly publish a book. Meanwhile, she posts a selection of the shots on her blog, where they are steadily gathering attention.
Among Fleming’s favorite shots are a drenched fashion stylist biking up First Avenue in the rain; an event designer pedaling down 10th Street with a sheaf of pink flowers over his back; and a model coasting along West Broadway in nothing but a black leotard and a sheer skirt.
"It was a freezing April day," Fleming recalled of the model’s scantily clad shoot. "People gathered around asking what it was for. It was such a New York moment."
Many of Fleming’s subjects already own bikes, but those who don’t have borrowed vintage ones from Landmark Bicycles on E. 3rd Street (the owner, Chung Pai, consented to be photographed as well). So far, everyone Fleming has approached already knew how to ride, though one subject was shaky, she said.
Fleming chose to photograph the riders from behind to create a "subtle, humble portrait" that also focuses on the street itself, she said.
"Downtown has changed a lot in the past five, 10, 15 years," Fleming said. "I was interested in connecting with the architects [and] architecture that changed downtown."
An Australian native who lived in the East Village until she recently moved to NoLita, Fleming left her advertising career about five years ago to pursue photography full-time.
Asked whether she would ever consider taking her project north of 14th Street, Fleming laughed.
"I can’t imagine doing the entire island," she said.
