Leland Bobbé started his career as a photographer in the mid-1970s shooting street scenes around Times Square and the Bowery in New York City. Bobbé was living downtown near the Brooklyn Bridge. He played drums with a band on the CBGBs/Max’s Kansas City scene.

Because I didn’t write music, I eventually realized through taking pictures I was able to make more of a personal statement than playing rock n’ roll written by others.

At night Bobbé drove a taxi. He scouted the streets in different neighborhoods. During the day, he returned to these neighborhoods to take photographs of the people who hung around the sidewalks, peep shows, bars, and flop houses.

Hard as it is to remember now, at that moment New York was kind of on its ass. Crime was at a high. Destitution and poverty were spreading like plague. Drugs and vice seemed to be the only booming enterprises. The Son of Sam slayings terrorized New Yorkers. The city was virtually bankrupt—President Gerald Ford told New York to “drop dead,” as the New York Daily News famously had it. He eventually relented and stumped up a loan to save the Big Apple. Bobbé‘s photos captured the city long before its gentrification as a rich hipster’s playground.

Bobbé often shot from the hip using a 28mm to avoid detection. Others were shot with a telephoto lens. The resulting photographs are stunning, gritty and powerful—filled with character and atmosphere that captured the city at an unforgettable point in its history.
 

 

 

 
More of Leland Bobbé‘s gritty photographs of New York in the 1970s, after the jump…..
 

Kat Mon Dieu.
 
The photographer Leland Bobbé describes the neo-burlesque movement as “an art form that allows the performer to use their bodies and costumes to deliver a statement or message.”

It can be a political, social or comedic statement. The message is up to the performer because they come up with their own act including costumes and music to deliver their message. It’s different from classic burlesque in that in classic burlesque it’s just about a seductive reveal of the body without having a specific message.

Neo-burlesque kicked-off around the mid-1990s. Billie Madley in New York and Michelle Carr her Velvet Hammer Burlesque troupe in Los Angeles revamped the spirit of old burlesque with some feisty punk pizazz. Neo-burlesque “put the tease into striptease” and brought spectacle, comedy and art back to the stage. They created their own characters, designed and made their own costumes, and choreographed their own acts. Unlike old burlesque, these young independent performers were making shows that often appealed more to women than men. And so neo-burlesque became a thing.

When New York-based portrait, lifestyle, street and landscape assignment photographer Leland Bobbé heard about the resurgence in neo-burlesque he knew it was something he had to photograph. He was not interested in just documenting these artists’ stage performances. He wanted to “capture their creative costumes and stage persona in very real non-posed studio portraits.”

Bobbé put an ad in Craig’s List. Made some contacts, got some referrals and soon neo-burlesque performers were knocking on his door. He photographed these beautiful everyday performers between 2010-2012. See more of Leland Bobbé‘s beautiful photographic work here.
 

Perle Noir.
 

Harvest Moon.
 

Ferro.
 
More beautiful portraits of neo-burlesque performers, after the jump…