Book Review: Limousine by Kathy Shorr

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Book Review: Limousine by Kathy Shorr

February 28th, 2025 by Cary Benbow

From ‘Limousine’ © Kathy Shorr

Between Destinations: Liminal Portraits from Kathy Shorr’s Limousine

Graduating from the School of Visual Arts in 1988 and completing her long-term ballroom dancer portrait project, Kathy Shorr transitioned into a new phase of her artistic journey, seeking a fresh way to capture the diverse faces of New York City, especially in her native Brooklyn. This pursuit led her to a creative and practical solution: driving a limousine. In her newly published photobook, Limousine, Shorr demonstrates that her vehicle of choice for a job provided a unique, mobile studio, offering her the opportunity to encounter and photograph subjects during their most memorable events.

From ‘Limousine’ © Kathy Shorr

The people riding in the backseat of her limousine, on their way to transformative life moments or events, had one foot in the past and one in the future. Shorr captured them in the middle of their transition. This temporary in-between state is reflected in the lives of the limousine passengers as well as the life and career of Kathy Shorr.

Much like her passengers, Shorr was also in transition. She had completed a long-term photo project, earned her BFA at School of the Visual Arts, and then what? Shorr loves to work with people and make portraits. She has an affinity for driving she inherited from her independent-minded Grandmother. This is especially worth noting because she is from Bushwick, Brooklyn – and in the 1980s as well as today – owning, storing, and being licensed to drive a car or limousine is not commonplace. Cosmic currents are aligning.

Shorr knew she could interact with many people on regular basis if she crafted the right situation. She says, “I knew that I wanted to continue working on a topic of interest to me over an extended period. I was also hoping that I could find a job that paid – to have a project and a paycheck together. First, I thought about driving a taxi, but it just seemed way too hurried and not a good fit for me. Then it occurred to me that I could drive a limousine and photograph the people I drove to celebrations. I would also have plenty of time to take photographs – without rushing.”

Many of Shorr’s limousine passengers were rushing on their way to and from weddings, proms, quinceañeras; significant markers in the narrative of life. For a small fee, the limousine is a luxury vehicle carrying them to moments of celebration, of change, of transition. Shorr captures her subjects in the moments leading up to these significant events, suspended in the anticipation of what is to come, or reflecting on what has been.

From ‘Limousine’ © Kathy Shorr

From ‘Limousine’ © Kathy Shorr

From ‘Limousine’ © Kathy Shorr

From ‘Limousine’ © Kathy Shorr

Like most things in life, we mostly see them as a string of events while everything is in full motion. Nothing is resolved. Nothing feels set. It’s often one wobbly step after another. Only afterward can we see the totality of the journey. That tenuous position is unsteady; like crossing a river one step at a time, finding the next solid place to move ahead and avoid falling.

Shorr found her next step, and in her limousine the dynamic would obviously need to pivot. She would need to transform from “a driver and her passengers,” to “a photographer and her subjects.” The roles reversed and now her passengers were ‘working for her’ so-to-speak. But Shorr possesses a remarkable ability to connect with her subjects, to put them at ease, to create an environment where they feel comfortable enough to reveal a part of themselves that is not always visible to the outside world. This trust, this fleeting intimacy, allows Shorr to capture the unguarded moments, the subtle nuances of human emotion that make her portraits so compelling. “For the kind of photography that I practice, merging documentary, street and portraiture, I do feel it is very important to talk and listen to the people that I am photographing,” Shorr relates. “A bond of trust must be established, and this is perhaps the main ingredient as to whether my work is successful to me.”

Amidst the views you would expect: smoking, drinking bridemaids; over-confident groomsmen, smooching couples – we see quiet moments as well as people who look happy, playful, full or swagger, or even the nervous excitement of little kids who might be sitting in a limousine for the first time in their lives. “Most people that I photographed were working class New Yorkers who were excited and happy to be part of a special occasion in their life or in the life of a friend or family member,” Shorr admits. The limousine is “a contained and safe space, almost like a luxury apartment on wheels,” Shorr adds. “If you lived in an apartment that was cluttered and not so nice, sitting on the broad leather seat with the mini bar, TV and first-generation cell phone (we called it a ‘car phone’ back then) was pretty much all you needed to keep life plush and intimate with your love or your best friends for a few hours away from the distractions of life.”

From ‘Limousine’ © Kathy Shorr

From ‘Limousine’ © Kathy Shorr

One of the images not seen here is a bride walking on a sidewalk toward a building; walking through a gate in a chain-link fence. Shorr captures this pregnant pause, her camera visible in the limousine’s side mirror, while another woman from the bridal party lifts and holds the gown’s train off the ground. In the next few moments, a few short steps away, the bride walks into the sunshine and a new chapter of her life. I love images like this because they can evoke a strong sense of the moment. And the moment to come.

I consider Shorr’s portrait sessions in the back of her limousine to be surprisingly insightful and frank portraits of people who are briefly between significant phases of their lives. Shorr’s subjects in Limousine find themselves in fleeting moments of transition between life’s milestones; much like Shorr found herself. Yet Shorr coaxes forth a glimpse of people’s unguarded selves, unscripted and without a known path forward – like you’re looking at the accidental artistry of the world itself.

Limousine by Kathy Shorr
Published by Lazy Dog Press

With texts by Chris Lezotte, Jean Dykstra
Design: Bunker
21 x 26 cm, 96 pages, Hardcover, English
First published November 2024

Kathy Shorr was born in Brooklyn, New York. Her work crosses the borders of documentary, portraiture and street photography. She received her undergraduate degree in photography from The School of Visual Arts and has an MS in Education, earned while working as a New York City Teaching Fellow working in the public schools in crisis. Her work has been shown in galleries throughout the United States and Europe including the celebrated Visa Pour L’Image for photojournalism in Perpignan, France. Her first book “SHOT … 101 Survivors of Gun Violence in America” was published by powerHouse Books in 2017. In 2022, she received the NYFA grant, the National Press Photographers Bob and Millie Lynn grant for photojournalism and the Miami Dade Cultural Commission grant for public art. She is currently working on the 3rd installment of her trilogy on gun violence in America, SHOT: We the People.

About Cary Benbow

Photographer, Writer, Publisher of Wobneb Magazine

View all posts by Cary Benbow →

Location: Online Type: Black and White, Book Review, Portraits

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