On April 18, the Brandeis Alumni Art Gallery opened the show, “Only Us: Photographs by Eric Neudel ‘69,” a unique exhibition that highlights the profound life of Eric Neudel: teacher, filmmaker and photographer. As a teacher at the Brimmer and May School in Newton, Neudel’s work continues through his students, and his return to Brandeis with this show further integrates him into academic life. I had the opportunity to speak to Neudel about his work in the show before the opening, and I wanted to share some insights from the conversation before the opening next week. 

While this selection of work undoubtedly shows how talented Neudel is, his work as a documentarian for Western Great Blue Hill is what he is most renowned for. This photo show is a collection of Neudel’s private work, as he said to me that photography was a private act for him, a passion of his since his youth. He excitedly described the suaveness he felt among his colleagues at WGBH, “There was a swagger about photography, Leica in our hands, being a part of the film world.” “Only Us” brings together unique moments from the 29 years depicted, each one a “snap” by Neudel’s camera.

It is this “snap” that Neudel privileges as the moment in question. While almost every photograph is a still image of a moment in time, this photographer transposes his philosophies of Street Photography into diverse settings that are not limited to urban centers. Where Street Photography has adored the spontaneity and unpredictability of their art, Neudel is capable of replicating those ideas in his scenes from all over the world. He talks about the people he was able to photograph in these moments, as if the photo takes a part of the person with it, a part he carries in print.

Neudel’s work is so geographically diverse that it may be difficult to position yourself amongst the photographs he has chosen to exhibit, and yet the continuity of the subjects grounds you as you walk through the gallery. From Leon, Nicaragua, to Kigali, Rwanda and Tacloban,Philippines, Neudel’s work espouses the camera to humanity and the shared interconnectedness of people across borders. While he documents the aftermath and the consequences of major global issues such as colonialism, ecological disasters and genocide, Neudel’s lens transmutes the subject into a moment shared between photographer and image. Each image the photographer has taken contains within it the moment captured and frozen in time, and Neudel is able to take quotidian scenes of life across the world and personalize them. He shared with me a story about a photo in the show, “Ntagaluka Hat Man.” The work depicts a man who sells hats in his community in Malawi. He described the interaction with reverence and appreciation for the shared moment that oozes from the photograph. A classic portrait of a salesman occupies nearly the entire frame, with a vibrant, flat-brimmed hat sitting atop the man’s head. His borderless and international work has allowed his art to take on a personal touch: “If you travel, like I did and live with the people and know them, you’re not the same anymore. You’re not a tourist, you know something that is essential about life. We’re all one thing, we’re all just humanity.” 

Ultimately, Neudel’s work seeks at the expanses of human experiences, across borders, sharing the inalienability of ourselves. “Only Us” seeks to portray the human experiences that travel and life offer you. The photographs represent the shared experiences we all have as humans, such as the social interactions between friends and the beauty of spontaneous moments. On the divisions in the world, he says, “People are people. When you start looking at life through that lens, the literal lens, you realize that everything else is artifice. People feel they need to be superior, but no one is superior.” In this time of deep division, Neudel’s work reminds us as Brandeis students that the world after university is filled with boundless possibilities.