Two North Fork photography exhibits are celebrating a range of imagery — from a campy, light-hearted look at the Greenport Fire Department in all its pinup calendar glory, to a more intensive study of the many and varied faces that make up Greenport Village, using techniques popularized in the mid-20th century.
Jeremy Garretson’s “Faces of Greenport,” which debuted at Little Creek Oysters on Carpenter Street, showcases dozens of local residents shot on film stock, many in black and white.
“At the Station: An Exhibition Celebrating the Greenport Fire Department” includes a series of David Benthal’s tongue-in-cheek snaps taken for the first-of-its-kind 2025 Greenport Fire Department calendar. Those portraits are on view at Floyd Memorial Library through Jan. 26. Both artists are veteran Times Review photographers.
For Garretson, “Faces of Greenport” is both a labor of love for the village and an effort to honor and preserve tradition in the face of a digital revolution. The long-form project was shot on film and developed by Garretson himself.
“The value of taking a photo has diminished greatly since digital cameras came into this world,” he says. “And as AI and all that stuff is becoming more popular, and the images it makes and how people don’t trust photos anymore — it was kind of me pushing back at that. The same way vinyl [records have] made a comeback is also true for film.”
Like many freelance photographers, the pandemic nearly drove Garretson out of business. “I almost threw the towel in. It was really tough for my business to stay afloat.”
But on a classic car photo shoot for Southforker magazine, serendipity struck. One of the car owners watched him working and made an unexpected offer.
“He said, ‘You like old cameras? I’ve got something you might like,’” he recalls. “He pulls out this box with an old Rolleiflex in it, covered in sawdust.”
A Rolleiflex is a twin-lens reflex camera known for its high-quality square images and topside viewing screen — meaning the photographer holds the camera at waist level and peers down into the screen.
Since the 2013 documentary “Finding Vivian Maier,” the camera brand has become synonymous with the reclusive 1950s Chicago-area nanny whose posthumously discovered cache of more than 100,000 photos turned her into one of the 20th century’s most cherished American street photographers.
Garretson offered $100 for the camera and struck a deal.
“I took it home, cleaned it up and got it working again, and got some film.”
It was the same Rolleiflex model Maier used, and Garretson says he “immediately” rewatched the documentary for inspiration before heading out to the streets of the village.
It was a novel experience for the veteran photographer.
“I’m six [foot] five, so when I pull a camera up to my face, first off, a lot of the shots are aimed down, and it also blocks your face. And the moment you put a camera to your face, the person you’re photographing goes into this kind of freeze, or pose.” But with the Rolleiflex, he noted, “you look down, and you shoot from the waist. It’s a very low, kind of childlike shot.”
Garretson says he came to see Greenport in an entirely new light, and that the project allowed him access to some neighbors and community members he wouldn’t normally get to know.
The collection captures Greenport in all its colorful glory — from Mayor Kevin Stuessi staring into the sky wearing eclipse glasses to an unhoused man sleeping in the ferry terminal.
“There [are] people with hardships that I wanted to try and capture. It’s a little harder to get somebody who’s dealing with hardships to let you photograph them. There’s one guy who lives out of his pickup truck at the end of Fifth Street, by the beach, and I just asked him one day, and he said yes.”
He also approached a group of hard-drinking Guatemalan and El Salvadorian migrants near the alley behind Noah’s. “Knowing I don’t speak a lick of Spanish, I opened my phone and showed [some of his previous film pictures] to them. They were apprehensive at first, but before you know it they’ve got their arms around me, and they’re all wasted. But they’re part of this community, too.”
The project was also a personal challenge that pushed the artist beyond his comfort zone.
“It’s been really one of the most rewarding things I’ve done with my photography, especially because I’m an introvert and I’m not good at approaching strangers. So it was a challenge for me, partly for my own well-being and mental health and partly because I just wanted to see the things that bring us together, and not the stuff that I’m seeing on the news, and all that.”
Still, he is adamant that his exhibit remain squarely focused on its subjects, not him.
“I’m not what the show’s about. The show’s about you, about all these people on the wall staring back at you and realizing that we’re all in this small, weird, quirky seaside village community together, and there’s a lot in common that we have.”
Benthal was invited to shoot the “At the Station” project through his friend David Nyce, a former village mayor and an assistant Greenport fire chief. Art historian Sally Grant later asked if they would be interested in displaying the photos at the library.
Benthal says the firefighters were great to work with. “It’s kind of funny. At least at the beginning of my career, I photographed a lot of folks who are not used to being photographed — especially early on with some of my stuff with Northforker. There would be a lot of farmers or fishermen, who didn’t really want to be photographed, so I’m very used to getting somebody comfortable and getting what we want out of that. Everybody was great. We had a lot of willing participants.”
Benthal, whose long career includes a large portfolio of iconic celebrity shots, said the firefighter shoot was a lot of fun.
“Some of my work is, ‘I’ve got three minutes with this person and I have no control over the room or whatever.’ Other times, I’m shooting a campaign and can design a complex lighting setup. So this [shoot] was probably somewhere in the middle. It was a pretty quick, run-and-gun style, while still trying to make it look pretty and polished.”
He adds: “I’m a pretty unserious person, and you kind of had to be in that mindset for that sort of situation. There’s a long history of fireman calendars. It’s silly and campy but fun.”
