“Brighton Beach” by Lara Ohl

Words by Alexandra Ginzberg. Photos by Lara Ohl

Shot in New Yorks neighbourhood Brighton Beach, this documentary photo project centers on the community of Russian, Ukrainian, and Eastern European immigrants who arrived beginning in the late 1970s and 1980s. It explores a world within a world with intimacy and curiosity – using portraiture, street photography, and close attention to environmental detail. It traces a neighborhood suspended between decay and glamour, a community defined by style, pride, and resilience, and an immigrant enclave that has shaped—and continues to shape—its own evolving mythology. The photo series spotlights individuals who carry decades of cultural memory in the way they walk, dress, and gesture. They reveal a community both distanced and deeply connected — one that maintains a distinct identity even as the tides of New York City shift around it. At Brighton Beach you will find a mix of nostalgia, suspicion, pride, and humor.