Todd Weinstein: Aiming for The Unknown Photographer
Story by Ellen Piligian • Photos by Todd Weinstein

After nearly 40 years as a photographer, Todd Weinstein is at a crossroads. Having successfully straddled personal and commercial work since his move from Detroit to New York City in 1970, Weinstein, 53, is taking a breather. "When you work on a 10-year body of work, you've been eating and you really need to digest it," he says, referring to his latest project, "The 36 Unknown," currently on display at the Holocaust Memorial Center in Farmington Hills, MI, which began in 1994 after he went to Germany to document the return of Jews to that country.

Now as he contemplates his next move, talking through a computer enabled with iSight in his cramped studio near the Flatiron Building, he admits 2004 was a tough year. He lost his longtime Manhattan apartment near Union Square due to rent de-stabilization. "That was pretty traumatic for me," he says, now living in an apartment in Chinatown with his wife, Isabelle Jud. "I still take pictures wherever I am. I'm thinking of doing a book on making wishes."

"I've been photographing flowers," he offers, not committing to any new direction. "Usually I don't have much control over what I do next. It's through the doing of it that I get the energy to do more. Through that process, something emerges. Thats how all my work comes to be. I don't have a specific goal in mind." Story continues...
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