Kevin Riordan: Firefighter shows us his Camden through photos

Camden firefighter Gabriel Angemi wants us to see the city as he sees it: Up close, raw, and real.

So he photographs the flames, the faces, the forlorn places, and the gritty moments of grace that are Camden.

"I was born for this," says Angemi, 37, referring to both the fire service and his street-smart art. "They say it's in your blood."

His father, Ronald, is a retired Camden firefighter from whom Angemi says he inherited his vocational - as well as artistic - inclinations.

A dozen years working in some of the city's busiest firehouses, as well as two decades of skateboarding in South Jersey, Philadelphia, and San Francisco, also have helped Angemi develop his tough yet humane eye.

Skateboarders "tend to race into areas with no regard to their personal safety," observes Philadelphia artist Adam Wallacavage, who, like Angemi, was a participant in the city's 1990s skating scene.

"Gabe . . . found himself in the bad parts of the inner city [as a skater] and stayed there to help as a firefighter," Wallacavage adds. "His photographs are the kind that can only be done by someone who is there to help."

Says Angemi's friend and fellow Camden firefighter Bobby Eckert: "Whether it's his drawing or photography, he just has such an awesome natural ability with it. He has such an eye for seeing everyday reality and capturing it."

Angemi grew up in Camden and Audubon, and lives in Mount Ephraim with his girlfriend and their 4-month-old daughter.

Impressively tattooed ("I'm running out of room") and powerfully built, Angemi works with the Fire Department's rescue company at Liberty station on Broadway.

"For someone who wants to ply this trade, Camden is the place," he says. "You work with a great fire department. You get to do good under very difficult conditions."

As a photographer, Angemi is self-taught and low-tech - often using smartphones or simple digital cameras.

"I love shooting people in an urban environment," he says. "There are so many good people in Camden. It's amazing what a picture can show."

Such as the image of a man crossing an empty Whitman Park street with a cane. It's one of the saddest sun-splashed photos I've ever seen.

Or the shot of two weather-beaten chairs and table of liquid refreshments on a back porch, with love zone spray-painted on the cinderblock wall.

Angemi's photos command attention; they were featured in the online edition of a Vice magazine story titled "My favorite street photographer is a Camden fireman."

He also was one of six shooters whom the Philadelphia Photo Arts Center asked to submit new work for its recent "99 Days" exhibit.

"There's a really interesting dynamic within his work," says Christopher Gianunzio, the center's exhibitions and programming director. "His pictures really have an edge to them. But there's a certain amount of compassion."

Like many younger people I've met who have roots in the city, Angemi is nostalgic for, even romantic about, the Camden he never knew, a place where factories hummed and Broadway bustled.

Not so now: Angemi recently saw a young woman disappear into the side of an abandoned downtown building, through whose ruined walls the flash and glow of a crack pipe could be seen seconds later.

"I so wanted to shoot her portrait," he says. "I want to show people what's going on. There's a wall around the city. People just don't want to see inside."