Before his iconic charcoal drawings, Robert Longo created a series of dynamic photographs that formed the foundation of Men in the Cities. Taken on New York rooftops in the late 1970s and early ’80s, these images capture friends and peers dressed in business attire, their bodies twisting and convulsing against the city skyline. Longo directed his subjects by startling them with thrown objects or sudden sounds - provoking genuine, unguarded reactions that blur the line between dance and collapse.

These photographs distill the essence of Men in the Cities: the elegance and violence of modern existence, the tension between power and fragility, the choreography of control undone. Each frozen gesture is both a portrait and a metaphor - an image of urban life stretched to its breaking point, rendered with cinematic precision and psychological depth.