“I photograph to find out what something will look like photographed.”
~ Garry Winogrand
~ 1928-1984
~ American street photographer from the Bronx, New York, known for his portrayal of U.S. life and its social issues, in the mid-20th century. Though he photographed in California, Texas and elsewhere, Winogrand was essentially a New York photographer.
An umbrella portraying the Eiffel Tower and the Moravian Star are the stars showcased in a window display of “Paisley Sun – A Luminous Gift Shop” in historic downtown Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Scenes of Main Street, feted for Christmas, are reflected in the window on the Saturday before Thanksgiving, when the area was bustling with early Christmas shoppers.
A Moravian star (German: Herrnhuter Stern) is an illuminated Advent, Christmas or Epiphany decoration popular in Germany and in places in America and Europe where there are Moravian congregations. The stars take their English name from the Moravian Church, originating in Moravia. In Germany, they are known as Herrnhut stars, named after the Moravian Mother Community in Saxony, Germany, where they were first commercially produced.
Bethlehem is known as The Christmas City. On Christmas Eve 1741, in a stable, while a small group of Moravians were singing a hymn with the stanza “Not Jerusalem, Lowly Bethlehem” Count Nicolaus Ludwig Von Zinzendorf christened this little town “Bethlehem.” Since that time Christmas in Bethlehem has been central to the city’s identity. From the first documented decorated Christmas tree in America to the efforts of the Bethlehem Chamber of Commerce to get Bethlehem nicknamed “Christmas City USA” in 1937, to the current time when both sides of the river boast Christmas markets filled with artisan craft, retail and food vendors, Bethlehem is rife with one Christmas celebration after another.
