Flo Fox was born blind with one eye, later losing sight of the other from multiple sclerosis, and eventually paralyzed her through her neck, but did not stop filming what was called the “sarcastic reality” in New York, who died in her Manhattan apartment on March 2nd. She was 79 years old.
Her son and only immediate survivor, Ron Riding, said the obvious cause was complications of pneumonia.
Inspired by a candid photo of a street scene taken by Robert Frank at the age of 13, she asked her mother for a camera, but was told to wait until she graduated from high school. After graduating, she designed clothing for theater and television commercials.
Until she was 26 years old and married, gave birth and divorced, she finally got a camera and bought a Minolta on her first paycheck from a new costume design job. She stopped design work after multiple sclerosis progressed, neutralising her hands and making it difficult to deal with clothing patterns, Riding said in an interview. She eventually survived mainly with Social Security and Medicaid.
Over the next 50 years, she took about 180,000 photographs, published books, contributed to numerous publications, and displayed her work at the Brooklyn Museum, the Smithsonian facility and galleries around the world.
In 2013, she was the subject of the New York Times OP-DOC film directed by Riley Hooper.
“I always felt that there was a great benefit of being born blind with one eye and not having to close those eyes while taking photos,” she told Viewfinder, the Leica Association's international journal in 2022. All I had to do was to frame the image completely. ”
Her vision of her left eye was like looking at the goshawed views. She first released the shutter by pressing a rubber bulb into her mouth. She then assembled the shot and then asked for help to take the photos. She began filming day and night to avoid the glare that left her eyes tensed.
By 1999 she was paralyzed from her neck, but continued to capture the outspoken city's Tabri until her condition worsened in 2023.
“Photos are my presence,” she wrote in her autobiography on her website. After missing the once-in-a-lifetime photo shoot, she said — she saw what she believed was a flying saucer floating above Abingdon Square Park in Greenwich Village – she couldn't go anywhere without a camera.
69 black and white images of New York City from the 1981 and 1970s were collected at Asphalt Gardens. This is a book published by the National Access Centre, which described it as celebrating the “fortitude spirit of a human struggling with a faceless system.”
Fox's work has appeared in International Photography Center, Life Magazine, and several other books, including Women See Men, Women Phothhry Men (both published in 1977) and Women See Women (1978).
In 1999, her photographic displays showed what it was like to be in a wheelchair in many cases. The collection became popular to encourage businesses and civil servants to improve access for people with disabilities.
Among Fox's favorite photos were images overlooking the Flatiron building and the original World Trade Center. She organized some into themes, set them up as music, and posted them on YouTube.
Some of her photos were whimsically titled: what was called “Everybody Sucks” was the image of a driver smoking a cigarette while the girl in the back seat sucked her thumb. Another, called “Cover Girl,” shows a sign with a rather covered reclining model.
Florence Blossom Fox was born on September 26, 1945 in Miami Beach. In Miami Beach, he is one of four children, Paul and Claire (Bauer) Fox. Her father moved his family from New York City to Florida and opened a honey factory. He passed away when Flo was two years old and her mother took the family to Woodside, Queens. Twelve years later, her mother passed away and Flo lived with her aunt and uncle on Long Island. There he attended General Douglas MacArthur High School in Levittown.
“When I left home, I had a real education on the street,” she recalled in an interview with Viewfinder. “At the age of 18, marriage and motherhood came at the same time.”
Plucky, 5-foot-4, and mostly self-taught, she was as rough as the pictures. “When I was invalidated, do you know my biggest loss? She told the New York Daily News in 2019.
She hoped her legacy would become “that I was a tough chick,” she said in 2015. “Tough cookies.”
She hoped that other heritage would help improve access for people with disabilities and promote laws that would give voice to ordinary New Yorkers filmed.
“For over 30 years, Flo Fox filmed graffiti and artwork people left behind to preserve their memories,” she wrote in her pursuit. “Die now, FLO requests that she leave a signature, initials, tags or graffiti marks on her co.”
Some of the people whose voices and visions she promoted were unable to see their artwork, visually impaired students are in the lighthouse photography class, run by the New York Association of the Blinds (now the Lighthouse Guild).
“The people in my class wanted to know what they had encountered and what was out the window in their bedroom,” she recalled. They brought in the photos they had taken, she added. “And we explained them all the colorful details.”
When one of her blind students provided a photo he had taken from his bedroom, she told him “There's a tree outside your window,” and the man glowed.
