Pictura exhibits experiences by former NYC cop

Antonio Bolfo’s exhibit “IMPACT” is on display at Pictura Gallery this month, showing life in the notoriously dangerous South Bronx housing projects in New York. Bolfo took pictures from the perspective of the rookie police officers who are assigned to the area, attempting to show the cops’ humanity.

And he would know — Bolfo used to be one of them.

Bolfo’s switch from cop to photographer is not entirely random, he said. In high school, the Manhattan native focused his attention on art and drawing, and pursued it further at the Rhode Island School of Design. Bolfo became the senior animator at Harmonix, the video game development company responsible for games such as “Guitar Hero” and “Rock Band.”

But after the Sept. 11 attacks, everything changed, he said.

“I love Manhattan, and I didn’t understand why anyone would want to attack my city,” Bolfo said. “So I started getting an itch.”

Bolfo decided to become a cop and, four days after graduating from the Police Academy, was sent to Operation Impact, a rookie-only unit located in Police Service Area 7 in the South Bronx.

The South Bronx is often considered one of the poorest, most crime-ridden neighborhoods in America, and Operation Impact sends rookies to face some of the strongest, smartest and most dangerous people.

Bolfo said many rookies began with a sense of optimism to better society, but communities like the South Bronx shattered that idea pretty quickly.

After two years at PSA7, Bolfo found himself returning to his roots, and instead of doing the police work, he wanted to take photos of it.

“It started to feel more important and useful, and it was a fusion of everything I had come to love,” Bolfo said.

Bolfo started the aptly-named project “IMPACT” in which he followed the 30 Operation Impact rookies around the housing projects.

However, he couldn’t take photos in his police uniform, so he would go to the housing projects in civilian clothes.

“I was respected there as a solid cop who was always the first one to the scene and at the bottom of the pile, so when I started taking photos, I relied heavily on that element of respect and trust,” Bolfo said.

But the cops had one condition: No flash photography. Because most of the criminal activity occurred at night, Bolfo had to learn to manipulate his camera settings to make the photos visible in low light.

But in the high-stress situations he often found himself witnessing, Bolfo found
another limitation.

“I realized that I could escalate a scene just by being there — people were wilder when they saw me with my camera,” Bolfo said. “So I’d hide it in my jacket, pop it out for a second to snap a photo, and then stuff it back in.”

What would be an uncomfortable and stressful way to work for some came more naturally to Bolfo.

“I related to these guys. I was one of them,” Bolfo said. “I knew what they were feeling when they encountered horrible things, so I knew what I wanted to communicate with each picture I took.”

Bolfo’s intention was to move past what it’s like to be an Operation Impact cop to showing the humanity of those who work the housing projects.

“You always see cops with this emotional shield and monotonicity, but each one of them is affected by what they see,” Bolfo said. “It was very personal and important for me to show the humanity in each of the cops, especially in the rookies who hadn’t developed that emotional shield yet.”

But that’s not to say that Bolfo’s work is one-sided.

“He does not glorify or vilify either the cops or the people they are apprehending,” said Mia Dalglish, co-curator and exhibitions director of Pictura Gallery. “I see them both caught in this terrible maze of violence and sadness. The cops look just as trapped and stuck as the people they chase.”

The result is a new perspective that is not often visible among the cops or those in the South Bronx.

“It was not the politics or the social statements or the action that attracted me to this project, but the story of the people who learn to be police officers,” Bolfo said. “And it is something I feel needs to be told.”

“IMPACT” will be on exhibit through Jan. 28 at Pictura Gallery.