Gun Nation
@ The Half King
David Katzenstein began taking pictures at age eight and hasn't stopped since. The turning point for him was a gift of the book "The World of Henri Cartier-Bresson" when he was 19. "Cartier-Bresson's ability to capture the decisive moment became my greatest influence and I became determined to combine my keen interest in diverse cultures with my strong desire to become a photographer."
Upon graduation from Connecticut College, Katzenstein spent a year traveling before settling in New York City to begin a career in commercial and corporate photography to finance his passion – photographing the daily life and rhythm of the world's Indigenous cultures. His editorial work has appeared in the pages of The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, Conde Nast's Traveler, and Travel & Leisure.
For the past twenty years, David Katzenstein has traveled five continents and many islands in between, exploring the daily lives and communal rituals of people different from himself. With the honesty of a documentary photographer and the eye of an artist, he freezes moments of revelatory experiences and evokes their essential spirit leading critics to describe his work as "poetic realism."
The photographs in Egypt: People and Places were selected from an ongoing body of work. Over the past sixteen years, Katzenstein has made numerous trips to the country. His knowledge of the Arabic language has helped him break down barriers in both rural and urban settings, giving him access to situations not often open to outsiders.
