DAILY BLOG

"Perhaps the secret to being a productive photographer is just about showing up - being in the right place at the right time to record and/or interpret the miraculous beauty of our world. I have frequently visited and photographed around Kussharo Lake, more than most places in Japan. Set high up in the North East of Hokkaido, there is something alluring, attractive and mysterious about the place that consistently calls me back. No matter how many times I walk along its banks, the view is never the same, it changes and recharges every minute to reveal a continual stream of astonishingly beautiful new treasures and delights. On this particularly cold morning, the frozen ice combined with the natural hot spring water to produce clouds of white mist which rose behind black, inky trees. I was there at one of many “right" times and I knew that it would been very difficult to make a poor photograph. Having frequently returned to this location since, I have found, to my great satisfaction, there have been many other “right” times.."

 

~ Michael Kenna

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“Photographing women is like capturing poetry in motion. Their beauty unfolds like verses and each frame reveals a new stanza of their story”

 

~ Lillian Bassman
(1917 - 2012)

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“Something catches your eye or your interest. You attack it in one way or observe it in some way and try and put it in some kind of form and take a picture. It’s as simple as that”

 

~ Elliott Erwitt
(1928 - 2023)

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“I’m known for fashion photography but in America, kids would go to college and get out and buy a second hand car and go across the country and discover America. I never did that. I went from New York to Paris and New York was my America”

 

~ William Klein
(1928-2022)

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“When one takes a photograph, one doesn’t think about saying anything in particular. One doesn’t think about making a statement but rather of creating something visual which can later bear a meaning that one didn’t intend to transmit-depending on the viewer’s interpretation but not necessarily on the photographer’s”

~ Manuel Álvarez Bravo
(1902-2002)

“When I’m not making work, I’m spending my time reading. I’m reading and thinking about how to present something in a different way visually or through words”

 

~ Cig Harvey

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“I create situations that do not exist. I seek the truth from fiction.”

 

~ Sarah Moon

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“In all the world, there is no heart for me like yours. In all the world, there is no love for you like mine.”

 

~ Maya Angelou

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“Photographs must be taken without an exchange of glances between the photographer and the subject. Without giving, without returning anything. I just shoot”

 

~ Marc Riboud
(1923-2016)

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“For me personal experiences are the initial impulses to create. When presenting the work after period of contemplation, I hope these feelings and emotions become more abstract and universal. In the end it is not about us, but a deeper, universal emotion and connection”

 

~ Paul Cupido

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"I think of being out in the landscape as a time to harvest observations - then in the darkroom is the time where the observation finds its voice, its landing space in its physical manifestation"

 

~ Jeffrey Conley

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“There are different ways of seeing. I have mine. For me to photograph a beautiful face, a misty landscape is somehow like listening to music or reading poetry. It helps me to live”

 

~ Marc Riboud
(1923-2016)

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“I was terrified, I didn’t think I even knew who he was. But the light was good”

~ Jane Bown
(1925-2014)

 

“War doesn’t determine who is right - only who is left”

~ Bertrand Russell

“In my artistic process I have tried to create images that invite the observer to examine by means of what I call “emotional contemplation” assigning through the beauty in them the meaning of their shape”

 

~ Luis González Palma

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“A good photograph becomes something more than just a good photograph. It has meaning and value that extends beyond the medium itself. Something spiritual that reveals something about life”

 

~ William Klein
(1928-2022)

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“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

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“A good photograph becomes something more than just a good photograph. It has meaning and value that extends beyond the medium itself. Something spiritual that reveals something about life”

 

~ Louis Stettner
(1922-2016)

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“Our way of life is strongly dependent on the cycle and rhythm of the seasons, the movement of the tides and the phases of the moon”

 

~ Paul Cupido

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"I believe that the greatest creativity stems from the childlike nature that one has retained"

~ Sarah Moon

“In my city we like to think of ourselves as risk-taking, edge-of-the continent explorers, rakish and louche. For example, we go from sleazy to elegance and find that logical. San Francisco is a city noted for its liberal attitude where anything goes. I just love this place.”

 

~ Fred Lyon
(1924-2022)

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"Within the swirling randomness of light and form in nature, sometimes wonderful elements line up out of pure chance - synchronicity. In my view, much of photographing the landscape is about the wonder of ephemeral elements and taking notice of juxtaposed parts that are constantly in motion. It’s all about being present, aware, responsive, and of course, lucky. This photograph was made on a hike on a mostly rainy day in November within the forest of Fontainebleau, France. I was captivated by the graceful shape of the branch and the way the background clouds seemed to mingle with the light and form. The balanced circumstances aligned briefly and then the moment was gone."

 

~ Jeffrey Conley

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“Solitary wanderings, eyes always peeled. As evening approaches, I wonder what meaning could be given to those encounters. Doubt often hovers nearby, but I photograph the way a musician hums. Looking is like breathing. So when luck offers me a good picture, joy is surely not far away”

 

~ Marc Riboud
(1923-2016)

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Due to popular demand Jeffrey Conley's exhibition, An Ode to Nature and Steve McCurry's The Endless Traveler have been extended until Saturday May 4th, 2024. Don't miss this opportunity to experience two amazing shows at our Santa Monica gallery. We look forward to your visit.

"Everything I've photographed exists regardless of me, my role is only to be receptive. The most important thing is the luck, behind every good image there is the good luck too”~ Pentti Sammallahti

We are excited to return to New York next week for AIPAD 2024, at one of our favorite venues - the Park Avenue Armory. 

Is there a photograph that catches your fancy on our website that you would like to see in person? We are happy to arrange special VIP appointments at the fair. To discuss further and schedule a viewing, please contact peter@peterfetterman.com

Explore our online preview for featured works by Henri Cartier Bresson, Jeffrey Conley, Sarah Moon, Anastasia Samoylova, and George Tice.

BOOTH PREVIEW

“Earth laughs in flowers.”

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

"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

“The League taught me that no matter how original and talented the photographers vision might berth, ultimate success of the photograph was mutually dependent on the photographer and the world of reality around him or her. Not to ignore, but on the contrary to concentrate his or her talents on everyday working people and what was immediately around them in terms of living and environment”

 

~ Louis Stettner
(1922-2016)

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“I soon saw how the music came naturally. It wasn’t like they’d built in time to compose - they had to do it on the fly. There was a piano in Paul’s room. At one point John pulled up a chair and started tinkering. Paul joined in. John started humming what I would later recognize as the tune to,“Baby’s good to me you know / She’s happy as can be you know / She said so…..” But they got stuck. Where should it go after the melody?

 

George wandered over with his guitar and played a catchy rhythm - and -blues riff, plucking away. He seemed to be improvising, although John was later credited with writing the riff-influenced by Bobby Parker’s song “Watch Your Step” - the way I heard it that day it was George coming up with it. They appeared to be writing a song right in front of me. And as John and Paul kept at it on the piano, Ringo, in a black turtle-neck came over and stood next to George, and I had my shot: The Beatles composing “I Feel Fine”.

 

~ Harry Benson

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“Nature doesn’t wait for anyone”

~ Cig Harvey

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“I have a strong attraction to the American South. People there have a marvelous exterior - wonderful manners, warm friendliness until you touch on things you’re not supposed to touch on. Then you see the hardness beneath the mask of nice manners”

~ Elliott Erwitt
(1928 - 2023)

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"I believe that childhood can contain certain numinous moments, something that can give a sort of almost cosmic inspiration. I experienced this with the sea close to our family home, which has an enormous tidal effect, with the water ebbing and flowing twice a day. At low tide, you can walk out across the mudflats and witness a myriad of life, including multitudes of birds. Then at high tide, that same area is completely submerged by two meters of water. During our long childhood summers, we would lose all sense of time, sometimes spending so long at the shore that the sea had time to rise, fall, and rise again. At night, the lighthouse would flash through my childhood bedroom window every four seconds, and my grandparents used to tell me it was watching over us. These experiences meant that from a very young age, I was acutely aware of the perpetual rhythms of the island, like the cosmic phenomenon of the moon controlling the tides, the passing of the seasons. That enduring sense of rhythm has certainly influenced my work as an artist."

 

~ Paul Cupido

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“The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life.”

~ William Faulkner

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“Nature doesn’t wait for anyone”

~ Cig Harvey

“To walk alone in London is the greatest rest”

~ Virginia Woolf

 

“I’m not aware that I have a specific style. I just take pictures as I come across them”

~ Wolfgang Suschitzky

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“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

“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

“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)

“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

“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)

“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)

“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

“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

“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

“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