#InTheLoop | Flushing-Raised Artist Returns Home to Display his Photographs
BY QEDC It's In Queens
Herb Bardavid was 10 years old when he bought his first camera, a Brownie, in the 1950s. Soon thereafter, the Flushing native converted his family’s only bathroom into a darkroom. His passion then took him around the world — including Cuba, Ecuador, France, Peru, and Sicily – with a camera at the ready.
He returns home with the Downtown Flushing photo exhibition, which unveils at the Voelker Orth Museum in Flushing on Sunday, April 16. Shot over three years, the show includes color and black-and-white images of the neighborhood’s people, energy, and excitement.
“In photography, as in psychotherapy, the goal is to see or experience something that has been seen before, to pause and then reflect,” he states in a Manhasset Public Library post. “I would like to make each photograph a reflection of my own insight and perspective into the human condition and the world around us and capture the passion and the pathos of the times as I experience it.”
Admission is free, and Downtown Flushing is on view until Sunday, June 18.
Plus, Bardavid will talk about the display and his creative process at Voelker Orth on Sunday, May 7, at 2 pm. (Light refreshments, $5 suggested donation.)
A social worker and psychotherapist by trade, Bardavid has had multiple photo exhibitions in New York City, Long Island, and Massachusetts. His website features series on NYC’s elderly population, subways before cell phones, Covid, bicycles, folksingers and homelessness.
Located at 149-19 38th Ave., Voelker Orth dates to 1891. Three generations of a family with German roots lived there until a Voelker granddaughter, Elisabeth Orth (1926-1995), bequeathed her estate to establish the museum to preserve a view of Flushing’s past.
Top image: Herb Bardavid; bottom image: Rob MacKay