Neal Slavin: When Two or More Are Gathered Together

From ballroom dancers to bodybuilders, Slavin’s photographic diary of organizations in ’70s America captures both nuanced group dynamics and larger societal values

In the 1970s, photographer Neal Slavin traveled around the United States documenting groups and gatherings. From bingo players to ballroom dancers, bodybuilders, Star Trek conventions and religious congregations, Slavin photographed seemingly every imaginable organization that humans have dreamed up. While the pictures themselves are most often posed, Slavin has always asked that his subjects arrange themselves in front of the camera, allowing natural hierarchies, group dynamics and indications of status to emerge. Says Slavin of his process, “I walk a delicate line between giving general instructions and allowing the group free rein to express itself while I watch individuals who jockey for position, thrusting a shoulder in front of the next person or wearing the widest smile, while others recede into the background, who are posing only to be a part of something larger—the group. My role is to capture a complete image, incorporating the eccentricities of human behavior that have emerged naturally from the multitude of personalities … I want my work to affirm our self identity within our public persona; to affirm the joy of being together rather than being apart. My intention is to intensely glimpse that kind of human spirit through the lens of my camera.”
When Two or More Are Gathered Together is a unique portrait of America itself and its idealistic underpinnings of individuality and liberty, memorialized in the nostalgic photographs of the ’70s, a time far removed both from the present day and from our present psyche. Originally published in 1976 by Farrar Strauss & Giroux, this new expanded edition, edited with text by Kevin Moore, includes group portraits taken over a span of 50 years.
Neal Slavin (born 1941) graduated from the Cooper Union School of Art and Architecture. He has published three photobooks: Portugal (1971), When Two or More Are Gathered Together (1976) and Britons (1986). He directed and produced the 2001 film Focus, based on Arthur Miller’s novel of the same name.