Tod Papageorge was relatively new to Manhattan and photography when he set out in the mid-1960s to make his mark. While street photographers with black-and-white film darted around pedestrians and traffic, he was attracted to storefronts with their harmonized symmetry and varying shades of gold between jelly jars and cider jugs. Traditionally, black and white was the choice of street photography, and color was for commercial work. His contemporaries, Joel Meyerowitz and Garry Winogrand, urged him to use color.

“They said ‘Look, just put color film in your camera, put together a carousel tray of Kodachrome slides, and you’ll get work, and things will improve and you’ll be able to move,’” Mr. Papageorge, 78, recalled. “I was slowly convinced, but I started doing it.”