Mexico City, Mexico, 2006

Play is Fun

Inspired by Helen Levitt’s photographic essay on children

Guatemalan Highlands, near Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, 1999

Levitt’s photographs uncover hidden worlds playing out on stoops and sidewalks. They are populated by numerous young people who roam the physical space of urban neighborhoods as they simultaneously navigate private byways of the mind. — Walter Benjamin, “A Small History of Photography”, 1979

Tenderloin district, San Francisco, 2010

Market Street, San Francisco, 2009

Alameda, California, 2009

Oakland, California, 2003

Kearny Street, San Francisco, 2009

Play is fun, the picture declares, but deeply serious. That nuanced, dialectic sense of the subject is central to Levitt’s achievement. In her thoughtful approach to urban children’s play, Levitt found a way to negate reigning assumptions about childhood, urban social life, and photographic representation, while simultaneously speaking to her cultural moment.

(left) Manila, Philippines, 1992. Mekong River, Luang Prabang, Laos, 1996

Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, California, 2012

Bixby, Oklahoma, 2015

Since I’m inarticulate, I express myself with images. —Helen Levitt

Manila, Philippines, 1992

War games, Manila, Philippines, 1992

Jakarta, Indonesia, 2016

Crystal was a server at a roadside restaurant along highway 64 just south of Tulsa. When I came up to pay at the counter, I asked about the 4x6 print propped up next to the cash register. She told me she has three children and one wants to be a cowgirl. Haskell, Oklahoma, 2008

Krebs, Oklahoma, 2005

Isla Holbox, Mexico, 2005

Chinatown, San Francisco, 2009

Panama City, Panama, 1989

Manila, Philippines, 2008

Nam Khan river, Luang Prabang, Laos, 2002

Houston, Texas, 2011

(left) Sarawak, Borneo, 2016. Halloween night, Los Angeles, California, 1992

San Diego, California, 2002

(left) Nagano, Japan, 1997. Market Street, San Francisco, 2011

Merida, Mexico, 2005

Manila, Philippines, 1992

Tulsa, Oklahoma, 2009

(left) Siblings, Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, 1999. Cousins, Oklahoma, 2016

Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, 1999

Wichita Falls, Texas, 1999

Tenderloin district, San Francisco, 2010

Tokyo, Japan, 2002

Photography by Alan Dejecacion

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Child’s Play in Helen Levitt’s Early Photographs