Ginsberg takes photo in beat style

ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP)--Smoking on a fire escape -- a railroad brakeman's rule book stuck in his jacket pocket -- Jack Kerouac looks as though he just stepped from the pages of ''On the Road.'' The image is seen in a 1953 photograph taken by fellow Beat writer Allen Ginsberg.

Ginsberg photographed the best minds of the Beat Generation in between bursts of creativity. An exhibit of 34 black-and-white photographs taken by Ginsberg and annotated with the poet's handwritten captions is on view at the Allentown Art Museum.

The word ''beat'' came from the streets of Times Square and jazz musicians of the 1940s and was embraced by Ginsberg, Kerouac, Burroughs and their friends. It came to symbolize an alternative community, a rejection of rigid literary conventions and the repressive social mores and politics of the 1950s.

The first half of the exhibit shows the young Beats moving among New York, San Francisco, India and Morocco from 1953-1964.

The photographs are candid but Ginsberg focused on his subjects' faces staring back at him. The intimate images look as though they were snapped after Ginsberg said, ''Hey, look at me for a second.''

Curator Jacqueline van Rhyn compared Ginsberg's photographs to portraits by Richard Avedon. ''The prints are high quality, but what contributes to their popularity is the personalities they capture,'' she said.

A 1956 photograph of Ginsberg retyping ''Howl'' on a portable typewriter in friend Peter Orlovsky's apartment opens the exhibit. Ginsberg is the subject of several photographs.

The handwritten captions set Ginsberg apart from other documentary photographers, said David Sestak, a collector whose family owns the Ginsberg photographs on display.

''I thought it was very unique in that there are very few fine art photographers who express themselves with the visual combined with the word,'' he said.

The later photographs from 1984-1991 are more self-conscious, as the Beats grow into their roles as cultural icons. By this time, Ginsberg had invested in a medium-format camera, resulting in crisper images.

Two photographs taken through the kitchen window of Ginsberg's apartment on New York's Lower East Side close the show, offering a last view of the world as the poet saw it. Ginsberg died in his apartment in 1997 at age 70.