Jamel Shabazz | Prospect Park Photographs of a Brooklyn Oasis, 1980 to 2025

Immerse yourself in the captivating world of photography at Leica Store and Gallery Meatpacking with our electrifying Saturday Morning series, Behind the Binding!

Join us for invigorating conversations with renowned photographer Jamel Shabazz, unraveling the stories behind his captivating works and acclaimed book.

Programming begins promptly at 11:00 AM.

Following the talk, indulge in signed books, bagels, and brewed coffee with the artist!

Seating is limited, so be sure to reserve your spot in advance!

Jamel Shabazz

Prospect Park - Photographs of a Brooklyn Oasis, 1980 to 2025 by Jamel Shabazz with contributions by Laylah Amatullah Barrayn, Richard E. Green, and Noelle Théard © 2025 Prestel Publishing

Never before seen works from Jamel Shabazz’s legendary photography archive spanning nearly half a century in Prospect Park, the majestic landscape that forms the heart and soul of Brooklyn.

Photographer Jamel Shabazz, who rose to global acclaim with his landmark monographs Back in the Days and A Time Before Crack, returns to his native Brooklyn — the place where it all began. Coming of age in the 1960s and 70s, Shabazz remembers Prospect Park as an oasis amidst an endless expanse of glass, steel, and concrete just beyond its 19th-century stone masonry walls. But it wasn’t until 1980, when he returned home after serving a 36-month tour in the United States Army, that everything came into focus.

Back on the block, Shabazz carried a camera in his hands as he embarked on his life’s work as a photographer. First stop, Prospect Park, a place that would become equal parts sanctuary, plein air studio, and training grounds over the next 45 years. Now he looks back at the journey in Prospect Park: Photographs of a Brooklyn Oasis, 1980 to 2025. The book weaves together Shabazz’s signature street portraits with luminous landscape, tender documentary, and hypnotic street photographs to evoke the restorative, nurturing powers of the natural world across the printed page.

From the outset, Shabazz understood photography as a healing balm, a form of “visual medicine” that became an essential practice after joining the New York City Department of Correction in 1983 at 23 years old. Over the next two decades, Prospect Park became a refuge from the brutality he witnessed at Rikers Island everyday, reconnecting him with the transformative power of nature, humanity, community, and connection exemplified by the park’s legendary Afro-Caribbean Drummer’s Grove. It was here that Shabazz met Vietnam veteran and activist Richard E. Green, who contributed an essay to the book alongside documentary photographer Laylah Amatullah Barrayn and New Yorker senior photo editor Noelle Théard.

For Shabazz, Prospect Park is a full circle moment in his 50 year career, a return to the people and place that shaped the artist he has become: a visionary dedicated to the preservation of world history and culture.

JAMEL SHABAZZ is a documentary, fashion, and street photographer, author, and educator.

LAYLAH AMATULLAH BARRAYN is a documentary photographer, curator, and educator, and a frequent contributor to the New York Times.

RICHARD E. GREEN is a highly-decorated Vietnam veteran, activist, and founder of the nonprofit Crown Heights Youth Collective.

NOELLE THÉARD is a senior photo editor at the New Yorker. Previously, she was program officer at Magnum Foundation.

All Photographs © Jamel Shabazz, 2025

Jamel Shabazz © Michael McCoy, 2016

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