DAILY BLOG

“Nature doesn’t wait for anyone”

~ Cig Harvey

“At the moment of shooting (composition) can stem only from our intuition, for we are out to capture the fugitive moment, and all the interrelationships involved are on the move……. It very rarely happens that a photograph which was feebly composed can be saved by reconstruction of its composition under the darkroom’s enlarger. The integrity of the vision is no longer there”

 

~ Henri Cartier-Bresson
(1908 - 2004)

We are thrilled to share that the “The Power of Photography” exhibition has been met with a wonderful reception! The Naples Press recently covered the exhibition in their Arts and Leisure section. Harriet Howard Heithaus's review for the paper is shared below.

 

Visit the exhibition online

There's still time to see the exhibition. The exhibition of 122 original prints curated by collector and gallerist Peter Fetterman, is on view now until April 28th 2024. For more information on visiting the museum, please see below for tickets and more information.

The Power of Photography Exhibition
Naples Art Institue
585 Park Street
Naples, FL 34102

Naples Art Institue and Gallery Store
Monday/Wednesday/Friday/Saturday: 10 a.m. - 6 p.m.
Tuesday/Thursday: 10 a.m. - 8 p.m.
Sunday: 11 a.m. - 4 p.m.

"There’s a contemplative or meditative quality to photography, which I find to be a sort of peaceful state. When I’m walking around photographing, I get into a particular mindset where I become much more attuned to the world around me."

 

~ Steve McCurry

“I feel that being a photographer is simply the logical endpoint for being someone who has a certain type of ability to observe. As a child, I noticed all sorts of things - some might say I was easily distracted, but really it was my early and formative time of refining my vision. I can’t stress enough how important observation is as the foundational component of being a photographer. It is all about noticing things; light, texture, form, the confluence of these elements within infinite combinations.”

 

~ Jeffrey Conley

“The great French photographer, Eugene Atget, spent many years photographing the gardens in and around Paris designed by the landscape architect André Le Nôtre in the 17th century. Early in my career, I followed in the footsteps of Atget to see where and how he photographed. I explored the formal estates of Versailles, Saint Cloud, Sceaux, Vaux-le-Vicomte and the Tuileries, amongst others, before finding Marly-le-Roi. Pools of water, fountains, rows of topiaried hedges and perspective illusions were the hallmark of Le Nôtre. This photograph, albeit maybe designed long after Le Nôtre, typifies an aspect of his landscapes - the unexpected. Through a forest of trees a circle appears, for no apparent reason. I’ve long felt that questions were far more interesting than answers. and this circle continues to intrigue me. Someday, I may find out what it is or what it is used for. Or maybe I won’t.”

 

~ Michael Kenna

“My dad used to have an expression. It’s the lucky person who gets up in the morning, puts both feet on the floor, knows what they are about to do and thinks it still matters”

~ President Joe Biden

“We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda. It is a form of truth”

~ John F Kennedy

“In my many years of photographing the landscape and prehistoric stones of Ireland, I had come to realize that the life of the place generated a quiet magic. During my photography, there was usually a herd of white deer. They were randomly roving on the grounds on an estate and so I asked permission of the owner and set myself to the task of how to photograph them. Catching them in small groups was unsatisfying but I remembered the talent of the Irish sheepdog and enlisted the help of the owner and his dog to corral a substantial number of these white beasts. I visualized the deer as being spread out before the trees of the estate and set about the choreography of the event. Some 25 or so of these deer were collected at one end of a long field and at my signal the dog was to chase them in my direction. My camera was set up so as to include on my ground glass the grass field as foreground and the trees and background with myself hidden in the tress so as not to be seen.Not knowing what to expect I signaled and to my delight and surprise one of the deer took the lead and the others followed one behind the other. In the subdued light of the day my calculated exposure required the widest lens, aperture and a slow shutter speed of I second. I did not know and could not know what impression would appear on my film but to my delight on processing the film I found a beautifully impressionist feel made by the running white deer. As to capturing something magical, I knew that to be the case when two white swans flew directly over my head and camera moments after releasing the shutter of the lens.”

 

~ Paul Caponigro

"I have often been asked what I think of that photo. What I think, to quote Proust, is that it is charged with something of the “transparent substance of our best moments,” those that we shared while we were young. Boubat and I, before the course of life made us drift apart, caught upon the spell that we were living under back then and what can only be called a poetic adventure.”

~ Lella, 1987
(Great muse of artist Edouard Boubat)

'Never give all the heart for love'

Never give all the heart for love
Will hardly seem worth thinking of
To passionate women if it seem
Certain, and they never dream
That it fades out from kiss to kiss:
For everything that’s lovely is
But a brief, dreamy, kind delight.
O never give the heart outright.
For they, for all smooth lips can say
Have given their heart up to the play.
And who could play it well enough
If deaf and dumb and blind with love?
He that made this knows all the cost
For he gave all his heart and lost

~ W B Yates
(1865-1839)

 

“It is through living that we discover ourselves, at the same time as we discover the world around us”

 

~ Henri Cartier-Bresson
(1908 - 2004)

“Japan has a long and rich tradition of reciprocal gift giving. I have been the grateful recipient of so much over so many years in Japan, and I know that I will never be able to give back in equal measure. I hope this work can be seen as a small token of my desire to do so. I also hope this work can be viewed as a homage to Japan and that it will serve to symbolize my immense ongoing appreciation and deep gratitude for this beautiful and mysterious country”

~ Michael Kenna

“I have often felt that beauty is the only language worth speaking”

~ Cig Harvey

“I have been poor and I wanted to document poverty. I had lost a child and I was obsessed with birth. I was interested in politics and I wanted to know how it affected our lives. I am a woman and I wanted to know about women”

 

~ Eve Arnold
(1912-2012)

“The models are friends of mine. These photographs involve moments of complicity that only a friend could accept. If there is no fondness between the model and the photographer, this kind of work cannot be done”

 

~ Flor Garduno

The Photography Show is approaching quickly! Join PFG in New York City this spring for AIPAD 2024 at one of our favorite venues, the Park Avenue Armory. The fair will take place between April 25th - 28th, 2024. Tickets are available to purchase now! More information included below.

Is there a photograph that catches your fancy on our website and you would like to see the print in person? We are happy to bring photographs with us for special VIP viewings at the fair.

To schedule a viewing please contact peter@peterfetterman.com with viewing requests.

“Photography is a medium, a language, through which I might come to experience directly, live more closely with, the interaction between myself and nature.”

 

– Paul Caponigro

“There is an orchestra outside my window”

 

~ Cig Harvey

"Nothing important is happening but that is precisely because a great photo doesn't necessarily have to show something important, it can be ordinary, anodyne."

 

~ Bernard Plossu

“This is essentially a People’s contest. On the side of the Union, it is a struggle for maintaining in the world, that form, and substance of government, whose leading object is, to elevate the condition of men — to lift artificial weights from all shoulders — to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all — to afford all, an unfettered start, and a fair chance, in the race of life.”

 

~ Abraham Lincoln

“Photography teaches us to see, and we can see whatever we wish. When I take a photograph, I make a wish. I was always looking for beauty.”

 

~ George Tice

"People are under the illusion that it's easy...Technically, it is complex. You have a million options with equipment to distract you. I tell my students to simplify their equipment."

 

~ Brett Weston

"Why must art be static? You look at an abstraction, sculptured or painted, an entirely exciting arrangement of planes, spheres, nuclei, entirely without meaning. It would be perfect, but it is always still. The next step in sculpture is motion."

 

~ Alexander Calder

“For me the camera is a sketch book, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity, the master of the instant which in visual terms, questions and decides simultaneously. In order to give a meaning to the world, one has to feel involved in what one frames through the viewfinder. This attitude requires concentration, discipline of mind, sensitivity and a sense of geometry. It is by economy of means that one arrives at simplicity of expression"

 

~ Henri Cartier-Bresson
(1908 - 2004)

“I feel that being a photographer is simply the logical endpoint for being someone who has a certain type of ability to observe. As a child, I noticed all sorts of things - some might say I was easily distracted, but really it was my early and formative time of refining my vision. I can’t stress enough how important observation is as the foundational component of being a photographer. It is all about noticing things; light, texture, form, the confluence of these elements within infinite combinations.”

 

~ Jeffrey Conley

“You can find pictures anywhere. It’s simply a matter of noticing things and organizing them. You just have to care about what’s around you and have a concern with humanity and the human comedy”

 

~ Eliott Erwitt

'In viewing the images in Devotion and at Peter Fetterman Gallery, I can only conclude that if, as the saying goes, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.,” then I’d revise that to say “Beauty is in the eye of Steve McCurry.'

 

~ Tom Teicholz

“Photography is an alibi, a pretext to see everything, to go everywhere, to communicate with everyone”

 

~ Sabine Weiss
(1924-2021)

John Edward Saché arrived in Calcutta from the United States of America in the latter part of 1864. As the capital of British India, Calcutta provided an optimal environment for photographers to establish their businesses. Saché would spend his summers operating from his studio nestled in the hills, where many sought refuge from the oppressive heat, and return to the plains during the pleasant winter months.Over the course of nearly two decades spent in India, John Edward Saché produced over 500 images and ran a successful enterprise, elevating him to the ranks of the foremost photographers of his time. His extensive travels throughout northern India encompassed major landmarks and towns, resulting in a rich collection of images that showcased his mastery of picturesque compositions.

“You see, when models work with men, they strike up a pose and so on…..with me they were always totally relaxed. I was just a woman photographing another woman who was very relaxed as well”

 

~ Lillian Bassman
(1917 - 2012)

“It is important that you respect what you are photographing."

 

~ Sebastião Salgado

“I have done a great deal of work to make all these photos and all these prints. I feel I have nothing to be ashamed of”

 

~ Wolfgang Suschitzky
(1912-2016)

“In general I don’t think too much. I certainly don’t use those funny words museum people and art critics like”

 

~ Elliott Erwitt
(1928 - 2023)

“Photography is for me a kind of meditation which widens my perception of the existing and evolving world around us. I seek refuge and simplicity in my photographs; and I find in it a personal accomplishment that I sincerely hope others too can feel.”

 

~ Jeffrey Conley

“I wait for photographs like a pointer dog. It is a question of luck and circumstance. I prefer winter, the worse the weather, the better the photograph will be."

 

~ Pentti Sammallahti

“For that second when I look through the lens I absolutely love the sitter and then I’m gone"~ Jane Bown(1925-2014)

“I have never wanted to give up performing on stage, but one day the tours will be over”

~ Mick Jagger

“Think about the photo before and after, never during. The secret is to take your time. You mustn’t go too fast. The subject must forget about you.Then however, you must be very quick”

 

~ Henri Cartier-Bresson
(1908-2004)

"I do what I feel, that's all. I am an ordinary photographer working for his own pleasure. That's all I've ever done."

~ Andre Kertész
(1894-1985)

 

Perhaps more than any other photographer, Andre Kertész
discovered and demonstrated the special aesthetic of the small camera. These beautiful little machines seemed at first hardly serious enough for the typical professional, with his straightforward and factual approach to the subject. Most of those who did use small cameras tried to make them do what the big camera did better: deliberate, analytical description.

Kertész had never been much interested in deliberate analytical description; since he had begun photographing in 1912 he had sought the revelation of the elliptical view, the unexpected detail, the ephemeral moment - not the epic but the lyric truth. When the first 35 mm camera - the Leica - was marketed in 1925, to seemed to Kertész that it had been designed for his own eye.

Like his fellow Hungarian Moholy-Nagy, he loved the play between pattern and deep space; the picture plane of his photographs is like a visual trampoline, taut and resilient. In the picture opposite half of the lines converge toward a vanishing point in deep space; the other half knit the image together in a pattern as shallow as a spider web, in which the pedestrian dangles like a fly.

In addition to this splendid and original quality of formal invention, there is in the work of Kertész another quality less easily analyzed, but surely no less important. It is a sense of the sweetness of life, a free and childlike pleasure in the beauty of the world and the preciousness of sight."

~ John Szarkowski
(Looking At Photographs, 100 Pictures from the Collection of The Museum of Modern Art by John Szarkowski)

"I create my images based upon stories and memories, in which I try to visualize the bond between man, spirit and nature. I love to use the contrast between light and dark and the twilight zone between them."

 

~ Ilona Langbroek

'In viewing the images in Devotion and at Peter Fetterman Gallery, I can only conclude that if, as the saying goes, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.,” then I’d revise that to say “Beauty is in the eye of Steve McCurry.'

 

~ Tom Teicholz

"The essence of my work really is about the little moments of wonder in life"

 

~ Paul Cupido

"I chose the camera as a tool to document different aspects of life: who we are, what we do, how we live, what our communities look like."

 

~ Earlie Hudnall (Jr.)

“Paris was that very special place where I defined myself as a photographer”

 

~ Louis Stettner
(1922-2016)

“Street photography is a joy. But the most difficult thing for me is a portrait. It’s not at all like someone you catch on the street. You have to try and put your camera between the skin of a person and his shirt, which is not an easy thing”

 

~ Henri Cartier-Bresson
(1908 - 2004)

“It never entered my mind that I was going to make it, but as I look back on my life I can see why I did. I made it because I had to always do something a little different. I made it because my taste was never bad. I had undying energy. If I did a picture, I couldn’t wait to see it. I always wanted to get things done as fast as possible. It’s going to be the way I want it. The model will meet my approval. They’re never going to force anybody down my throat. Every picture should be as good as I could make it.”

 

~ William Helburn
(1924-2020)

"I heard something click, when I photographed the Edmund Pettus bridge November 2022. I heard Sunday March 7, 1965. I heard dogs, horses, cries, all currency blowing in the wind, paying the price of change. Bridges connect, this bridge connects a less than pleasant past to promises of a brighter future. I heard it with my own eyes that night."

 

~ John Simmons

"Known as the land of fire and ice, Iceland is a place of contrasts. The landscape often feels simultaneously vast, intimate, stark, and delicate. There is something in the distinctive wide-open spaces, combined with ever-changing light and weather conditions, that reveals the implicit grace of the austere topography. It is a special place to witness. In this photograph, land, sky, and water are delineated elements that coalesce in a way that’s unique to the region. It represents a calming experience and memory and I very much look forward to returning."

 

~ Jeffrey Conley

“I make pictures of things that make me gasp. I want to evoke that same feeling. I want the viewer to halt too. Plunging your hands into soil is the same as plunging your hands deep into the body to grab at the heart”

 

~ Cig Harvey

We are excited to share that the “The Power of Photography” exhibition is now on view at the Naples Art Institute in Naples, Florida. This exhibition will feature a selection of over 122 original prints curated by collector and gallerist Peter Fetterman, on view now until April 28th 2024. For more information on visiting the museum, please see below: 

The Power of Photography Exhibition
Naples Art Institue
585 Park Street
Naples, FL 34102

Naples Art Institue and Gallery Store
Monday/Wednesday/Friday/Saturday: 10 am - 6 pm
Tuesday/Thursday: 10 am - 8 pm
Sunday: 11 am - 4 pm

“It felt as if the end were nigh. With the sun obliterated by a dark smoked Dantean landscape stretched as far as the eye could see. The horizon itself was marked by torches of fire where burning oil leapt from the lifeless desert. And all around, thick pillars of crude oil spewed into the sky before falling back to earth to form treacly black lakes that, without warning, could become gigantic infernos. Finally there was the noise, a deafening roar that only grew louder as I came closer to the source of this cataclysm, the hundreds of oil wells that had been sabotaged and set alight by the Iraqi army near the end of its occupation of Kuwait between early August 1990 and late 1991".

 

~ Sebastião Salgado
Kuwait. A Desert on Fire.

“Adams feels deeply what he sees, he has a reverence for the earth in all its variety, delicacy and strength, but he is the absolute reverse of effusive: he sees with such austerity, even severity, that some have mistakenly called him cold. He has an incomparable technical expertness in communicating what he sees and feels, and for half a century and more he has gone on making photographs so plainly stamped with his personal artistry that they hardly need his steeple-A signature on them. They have taught thousands how to see: they have become household images, they have steadily affirmed life.”~ Wallace Stegner

"Don Hong-Oai's photographs portray a deep inner world where imagination thrives and dreams are created. His masterful craftsmanship creates a reality where anything is possible."

 

~ Michael Kenna

“In photography, the smallest thing can be great subject. The little human detail can become a leitmotive”

 

~ Henri Cartier Bresson
(1908-2004)

“I want to express our dignity, beauty, suffering and resistance. This is the force of our gender."

 

Flor Garduño

“I didn’t want to be a "woman photographer”. That would limit me. I wanted to be a photographer who was a woman with all the world open to my camera”

 

~ Eve Arnold
1912-2012

“In many ways I'm drawn to the natural world because of the cycle of life and the ephemeral nature of flowers and their beauty, meaning that you have to be present right now” 

~ Cig Harvey

"Taking photographs is a means of understanding which cannot be separated from other means of visual expression. It is a way of shouting, of freeing oneself, not of proving or asserting one’s originality. It is a way of life."

~Henri Cartier-Bresson
(1908-2004)

“…my way of photographing is my way of life. I photograph from my experience, my way of seeing things…”

~ Sebastiao Salgado

“January 19, 2am. It was two in the morning, just me and the Beatles in John’s room. They were in their night clothes, they‘d ordered up food and whiskey, and Brian Epstein came in. He had big news "I want to hold your hand" had just made it into the charts in US. They erupted in cackles. They were beaming. Then he put the icing on the cake. "And next month we’re off to America. You’re going to be on The Ed Sullivan Show". The song had just entered the Billboard 100 at number 45. (By February 1, it would be number one). So I saw my opening. I suggested they celebrate with a pillow fight-like the one George had mentioned to me before. John immediately shot it down. "No. It’ll make us look silly” But I kept my eye on John, who started slinking off. And just as I lifted my camera, John sneaked up behind Paul and pow, whacked him in the head with a pillow. Paul’s drink went flying and they were off”

 

~ Harry Benson

“People always ask me “How do you relate to people. How do you get people to open up and relax?" I think it is just a question of experience. I think it’s a question of enjoying being with people.”

 

~ Steve McCurry

"...Jacques Lowe was monumentally self-effacing. This, I believe, is why his camera caught so much human truth. There are no orchestrated 'photo-opportunities here..."

 

~ Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.
American Historian and Social Critic
(1917 - 2007)

"This delicate tree, sitting quietly and improbably in the cold waters of Wanaka Lake, is possibly one of the most photographed trees in New Zealand. I have had the great pleasure to visit it several times, and have usually waited in line behind bus loads of visiting tourists before being able to say hello. On this early pre-dawn morning, however, I was delighted to find myself alone, until I discovered some unexpected company in the form of birds, contentedly sleeping on the tree’s branches. My usual M.O. is to make long time exposures so that clouds and water transform into timeless and enigmatic mists. As the emerging light slowly began to appear, I made several such exposures, aware that both the branches and birds were moving. I was waiting for the birds to leave, before I could make what I considered to be a classical Kenna image, which I later printed and titled 'Wanaka Lake Tree, Study 1'.

Several years passed and I was asked by the publisher Atelier Xavier Barral to participate in a series of books they were publishing on birds, 'Les Oiseaux'. I went through my negative files and discovered many unprinted negatives in which birds were depicted, including this image which I subsequently titled 'Wanaka Lake Tree, Study 2’.

I have long felt that aesthetic decisions should never be dogmatic, and should always be challenged and doubted. At the time I made the photographs, I was convinced that the tree 'sans oiseaux" was the stronger image. Now I am less sure. Time has a way of playing with one’s emotions and sensibilities.
Our views sometimes change, precisely because we are alive and changeable, which I find immensely reassuring!"

 

~ Michael Kenna

"Photography is a waiting game. The shutter may take only a instant, but the photographer has waited for exactly the right subject, the correct perspective, the perfect light, carefully arranging it all in the frame to be paused in time."

 

~ Douglas Gilbert

"It’s something I can’t stop, a photographer doesn’t retire"

~ Sheila Metzner

"I saw photographing jazz artists as a visual diary of what I was hearing. I wanted to preserve the mood and atmosphere as much as possible. My goal was to capture these artists at the height of their finest creative moments."

 

~ Herman Leonard
(1923-2010)

EXHIBITION OPENING

 

Sheila Metzner : Objects of Desire
November 4th, 2023 - January 5th, 2024

"All I want is to preserve that wonderful something which so purely exists between us."

 

~ Alfred Stieglitz
(1918-2006)

“I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom”

 

~ Bob Dylan

“Bob Dylan’s arrival in New York was like a prophecy come true. He fit the image that had already been established by Pete Seeger in his blue jeans and work shirts and by Woody Guthrie - a refugee from the dust bowl era -and his dirty rugged clothing. Dylan stepped into this legacy and played his character well with his own comedy and original insights. People remember that he was “stealing" from everybody around him, absorbing the entire scene. In the process he energized folk music, created his own songs, incorporated earlier American traditional music, shaped Rock’n’Roll and wrote some of the most moving songs of the century”

 

~ John Cohen
(1932 - 2019)

 

“I want to find an echo between myself and the world, a resonance”

 

~ Sarah Moon

"There had been a raging blizzard during the night. When I awakened in my bed, I looked toward the window to see a magnificent display of frost. Nature’s storm had playfully arranged what seemed to be stationary snowflakes on the pane of glass. Looking through the window and its decoration of frosted crystals. I saw a tree trunk with its branches rhythmically and joyfully dancing as if in celebration of the visual magic that was before my eyes. It was now up to me to quickly arise and to gather my equipment and film to etch all this beauty and magic onto film and silver paper”

 

~Paul Caponigro

“At that time, whatever Dylan would send to the record companies, they would use. He picked all the inside photographs also. They were lying around my studio and he chose them."

 

~ Jerry Schatzberg

“Everything around us, dead or alive, in the eyes of a crazy photographer mysteriously takes on many variations, so that a seemingly dead object comes to life through light or by its surroundings....to capture some of this - I suppose that’s lyricism.”

~ Josef Sudek

“The work is grounded. It’s solid and it hasn’t changed.. I have, but not the photographs.. I have great admiration for whoever I was, whoever the person was that did the work somehow in that time”

 

~ Sheila Metzner

“Nothing is ever the same twice because everything is always gone forever, and yet each moment has infinite photographic possibilities.”

~ Michael Kenna

"The awful truth is that I love all of cowboying, even when everything has gone wrong and it's not looking to get any better. Sometimes I especially like it that way."

~ Kurt Markus

“For me, the camera is a sketch book, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity"

~ Henri Cartier Bresson

“It is still color, it is not yet light”

~Pierre Bonnard

"It took me 30 years and a lot of pain to discover the truth of what Henri Cartier Bresson always said “One should only use one camera, with one lens that coincides with your angle of vision, with the same film at its normal speed. The rest is just gimmicks and hardware”

~ Jean-Philippe Charbonnier

“She’s my first love”

~ Miles Davis

“He’s a man I have deep love for and huge admiration”

~ Juliette Greco

“All I can be is me - whoever that is.”

~ Bob Dylan

"I think that what you've got to do is discover the essential truth of the situation, and have a point of view about it"

~ Burt Glinn

"You always have two choices:
your commitment versus your fear"

~ Sammy Davis Jr.

“Being a photographer primarily involves being an observer, and on one particular day, while sipping coffee at the kitchen table, I noticed that the glass door leading out to the porch carried a patina of etched shapes upon it. It was wintertime and the cold of the outdoors meeting the warmth of the kitchen had left shapes like snowflakes and broader patches of frost across the entire pane of glass. The observer in me saw the potential for a picture and so I brought my view camera into the kitchen and played with the image on my ground glass until I created a good composition that exposed the uniqueness of the frost and winter’s handiwork. I focused on the plane carrying the frost and this selective focusing caused any objects behind the frosted glass to be seen as soft -edged and out of focus. A bright light falling on some objects on the porch appeared as a soft cloud in the midst of the frost pattern. In the final print from the negative, I was pleased with the coming together of shapes and tones that created a nebulous space in which mystery and beauty hovered together"

~ Paul Caponigro

"I heard something click, when I photographed the Edmund Petus bridge November 2022. I heard Sunday March 7, 1965. I heard dogs, horses, cries, all currency blowing in the wind, paying the price of change. Bridges connect, this bridge connects a less than pleasant past to promises of a brighter future. I heard it with my own eyes that night."

~ John Simmons