Feldstein, Mark. Sightings by Mark Feldstein.

Chelsea House, 1977. 159 pages. Introduction by Marvin Heiferman. 1st edition. Includes about 150 square format black-and-white urban photographs with strong formal compositions by the painter and photographer. Hardcover in cloth, fine with fine protected dust jacket, like new. Issued at same time as Feldstein was having an exhibit at Castelli Graphics in New York City, where Feldstein was teaching photography at Hunter College.  Summary:

ightings (1977), published by Chelsea House Publishers with an introduction by Marvin Heiferman, is a 158-page fine-art photobook showcasing the square-format urban street photography of American photographer and former painter Mark Feldstein.

Key Details & Summary

• Scope & Concept: The volume compiles approximately 150 square-format black-and-white images capturing the geometry, architecture, and quiet moments of New York City street life, framing brief pauses extracted from continuous urban movement.

• Formal Aesthetics: Drawing on Feldstein's background as an abstract painter, the photographs feature rigorous formal compositions, high-contrast black-and-white tones, and careful attention to surface textures, reflections, and structural details.

• Photographic Methodology: Embraces the concept of the urban dérive—intuitive, meandering walks through lower Manhattan—where chance encounters with light, shadows, architectural facets, and utilitarian objects guide the visual framing.

• Critical Context: Published concurrently with exhibitions of Feldstein's fine-art prints, the volume serves as an early milestone in 1970s modernist urban landscape photography, highlighting the ordinary cityscape as a venue for formal visual poetry.

Biographical Summary: Mark Feldstein

Mark Feldstein (1937–2001) was an American fine-art photographer and educator best known for his formal black-and-white urban landscapes and architectural studies of New York City. Born in Milan, Italy, to German Jewish parents, he moved with his family to New York as a child and grew up in the city. He earned his art degrees from Hunter College, where he studied under abstract expressionist painter Robert Motherwell, and worked for a decade as a painter before turning exclusively to fine-art photography around 1970. Keeping a home and studio on Bond Street, Feldstein used daily walks through lower Manhattan to capture the rhythms, textures, and subtle geometries of the city. As a long-serving professor of photography at Hunter College alongside Roy DeCarava, Feldstein was instrumental in founding the college’s photography department and integrating the medium into its M.F.A. curriculum, influencing generations of street and documentary photographers until his death in 2001.