Posts #1-200

Jerusalem has been, and is, the spiritual home to three major religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. To say it is a magical place is a great understatement.

I have seen and collected many images of The Holy Land but this recent acquisition is I think the greatest I have ever seen taken at this special place. I believe it to be a unique print. It is as if Irving Penn had been transported back in time.

Of course, “The Steerage” is one of the most celebrated images in the history of photography. For good reason as its genius graphic construction and human empathy is utterly timeless.

Wynn Bullock, to my mind, is one the greatest 20th Century photographers. Often eclipsed by his more well known contemporaries, Edward Weston and Ansel Adams.

This is a haunting portrait of his mother’s hands taken in his modest house in Carmel in 1956. The beauty of the print just knocks me out and is the definition of the word “primal”.

I was visiting our great friend and artist, Pentti Sammallahti, in Helsinki and I casually said to him, “Perhaps there is another great photographer in Finland I should meet?”

He made a telephone call and the next day he drove me for over 3 hours in the freezing cold through what seemed like at the time endless forests to meet his most favored student and protege, Kristopher.

We spent a delightful few hours all together and as we were talking and eating out of the corner of my eye I saw this gem of an image hanging on a discrete wall. I had to get up to look at it more closely. Then like a powerful Ali punch I was knocked out by it’s power and physical beauty.
A tender and loving portrait of his wife.

It remains, to this day, one of my all time favorite images.

We are pleased to continue our new online series called the Power of Photography highlighting hope, peace and love in the world. We invite you to enjoy and reflect on these works during this time.

Taking up photography at the age of 40 years old, urged on by her children as an antidote to her husband leaving to run the family plantations in India, Julia Margaret Cameron became the first great female photographer.

It is so hard to find her prints in such perfect condition as this one. I had collected several in the past in not so great a condition but it was always a dream to find a 10. My dream came true with this one and it just transports me to a special pace each time I look at it.

Ansel Adams is justly celebrated for his epic depictions of majestic landscapes, but this rare, little discussed, haunting image of displaced children shows his profound empathy for humanity. Certainly on a par with, his close colleague Dorothea Lange’s, “Migrant Mother” but certainly no less powerful.

Many years ago we mounted a Civil Rights Exhibition in the gallery, it was a subject that completely enveloped me.I knew we needed to have a great MLK image to anchor the exhibition and I subsequently spent months hunting and viewing hundreds of images. When I came across Dan Budnik’s understated work and met him I knew this was the one.

It was always Cartier-Bresson’s intention to become a painter as a young man. He studied intensely with the celebrated teacher and Cubist painter Andre Lhote.

Fortunately, for the history of photography and for us, he discovered photography to become in my opinion, the greatest 20th Century photographer and maybe the greatest photographer ever. His work was the inspiration for me to open a fine art photography gallery so my debt to him is huge.

One can see the painterly influence on this key early image, “On The Banks of the Marne”. It is as if Seurat picked up a camera by mistake instead of his paint brushes. It’s simple joy and humanity and always puts a smile on my face.

Of course the Beatles have been much photographed but this has always been my favourite. Taken by the great David Bailey, a fellow East Ender. It’s more than about Paul Mccartney and John Lennon. It is so much more universal than that.

It is about friendship and creativity and shared history.

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
~ Emma Lazarus

When I first met Ernesto I knew instinctively that here was a new talent, bursting with energy and fresh ideas. How many times had I seen images of this American Icon but it radiated a special transcendence which bowled me over. Now more than ever do these words ring true.

August Sander’s epic projects are so revealing and intense. Totally masterful and encyclopedic. Absolutely one of the great Masters of Portraiture. Here is a moment of lightness and joy. I suspect this boy echoes this feeling.

I met Flor Garduno over 30 years ago when she was given an exhibition by Foto Fest. She did not speak any English and my Spanish was limited at best. I saw her exhibition “Witnesses of Time” which brought me to tears. It was so powerful and haunting.

I went up to her and just put my hand on my heart and wiped the tears from my eyes. I hugged her and after that we started to work together.

“The Blessing” is part of a wedding ceremony she witnessed. It comforts me and give me hope every time I look at it.

I had the great pleasure of working closely with Edouard in the 1990’s whilst he was alive.
He was exactly what his photos are still - sensitive, gentle and tender.

Here is a rare gem I asked him to make for me.

No one made more beautiful prints than Mr Penn.

I feel I have to be very formal even when I think about and write about him. He commands reverence. He is certainly in a class of his own. The dedication and craft it takes to execute an image like this cannot be underestimated.

I owned a print of this 30 years ago but had to sell it to start up my gallery. It broke my heart to part with it, but a print of it came back to me recently after all these years of absence. It is truly inspirational and reminds me that nothing in life worth having comes easy.

No one made more beautiful prints than Mr Penn.

I feel I have to be very formal even when I think about and write about him. He commands reverence. He is certainly in a class of his own. The dedication and craft it takes to execute an image like this cannot be underestimated.

I owned a print of this 30 years ago but had to sell it to start up my gallery. It broke my heart to part with it, but a print of it came back to me recently after all these years of absence. It is truly inspirational and reminds me that nothing in life worth having comes easy.

When I was growing up in London when I was about 16 years old I picked up a copy of Roman Vishniac’s book “A Vanished World”. It was the first photo book I had ever bought. The power of it totally took me over, especially this image. 

Flash forward 5 years, I had scraped enough money together to go visit New York which was always a dream. I don’t know what possessed me but I looked through the telephone directory (do any of you remember these?) and saw that he was listed. I took a deep breath and mustered up the courage to call. Mr Vishniac answered and I nervously fumbled my way to say I was so moved by his book and this was my first day in America and could I come meet him? He said, "Come round tomorrow. I’m busy but I will give you 10 minutes."

I went to his apartment on Upper Broadway and stayed 5 hours. I must have looked like a waif and his wife kept feeding me continuously. He was so intelligent, so erudite, so inspiring with his stories of how he captured these images of this community who were doomed to perish. I asked him more about “Sara”. He told me she had never seen flowers in person and that her father had painted them for her to try to give her hope that there was a world outside.

It is still one of the greatest photos I have ever seen.

Thurston was such a joy to be around. Typically English in his demeanor, very modest and humble about his incredible achievements, but with such a life force.

This image is pure, pure joy and I see it every day.

There is something so seductive about Lilo Raymond’s work.

Her on-the-surface simple, domestic interiors evoke a deep range of emotions. A longing for calm and respite from a chaotic world not far from here.

Is it the light or the white or both that makes us want to inhabit her rooms and never leave?

Many years ago, I was visiting a small exhibition of people’s favorite photos in Los Angeles and came across this image of a young boy who lived in a special school for blind children. I had never heard of Charles Harbutt so I tracked him down. He was so modest and humble in spite of being the President of Magnum Photos.

Here the blind child is searching for the light he cannot see. Isn’t this what we, who are blessed with sight, are always trying to do?

I grew up loving Sinatra. Probably like a lot of kids I used to sing in front of a mirror with a pretend microphone.

He was so cool and I ended up meeting him in 1981. In my former life I produced a film with Luciano Pavarotti. Pavarotti idolized Sinatra. Sinatra idolized Pavarotti. Sinatra graciously hosted the opening night party for us in NY and I got to meet him in these dreamlike circumstances.

Flash forward many years. We hosted an exhibition of all the great Sinatra images at the gallery in collaboration with the Sinatra family who were just great to be with. They thought the exhibition was just so classy.

This was Frank Sinatra, Jr’s favorite photo of his dad. He said that was him.

Martine Franck was one of the most gracious people I have ever met.

She went out of her way to introduce me to so many great photographers like Willy Ronis, Edouard Boubat, Sebastiao Salgado because she thought it would be good for me and for them.

She was a great photographer in her own right but completely self-effacing. If you look very closely at this image, you will see a solitary woman walking in the far distance in the snow.

Snowy imagery and black and white analogue printing, a marriage made in photographic heaven.

A chance viewing on Instagram by one of our fashion clients who urged us to seek out this young, emerging Hungarian female photographer from just this one image.

Such is the power of photography. That this image has changed both her life and ours. We have been given the gift of a great new photographer to collaborate with and she has been given the gift of being able now to support herself as a full time artist due to the enormous global support of her rare and original talent.

Imogen Cunningham, soon to be the subject of a major Getty Museum exhibition, captured this intimate portrait of her fellow photographers Edward Weston and Margrethe Mather with such exquisite tenderness and insight. One of the great love stories in the history of photography, also stimulated equally great work at this time from the sitters.

Bruce Davidson’s Sunday morning “Stickball” is like an elegant ballet. The cars have just been given their weekly wash and there is that wonderful leisurely feeling after a frantic week no doubt. 

It’s a classic image capturing a community and spirit that we can only now look back on wistfully. 
So much has changed now.

"I have never sought out the extraordinary or the scoop. I looked at what complemented my life. The beauty of the ordinary was always the source of my greatest emotion."

~ Willy Ronis

I enjoyed such a wonderful 20 year collaboration with Willy Ronis. Whenever I was in Paris I would take him to dinner.

One day I said I want to take you to the restaurant where you shot “Rue Muller”. We went there and the street hadn’t changed in over 60 years. I had booked the restaurant to give him his 100th birthday party but sadly he passed away at 99 and a half years, after a long and fulfilling life. 

One of the greats for sure.

“Painting is self discovery. Every good artist paints what he/she is.”

~ Jackson Pollock

I really love exceptional portraits of artists. I can only dream of owning a Modigliani, Seurat, Picasso, O’Keeffe, Cassat, Agnes Martin, etc., but a great artist portrait is the next best thing.

Martha Holmes was an important Life Magazine photographer and this image of Jackson Pollock deservedly made the front cover when it was first published.

“Photography gave me happiness. I am not an artist. I am an artisan. I don’t create anything... I am just a witness of what I see and what interests me, which has always been human beings.”

~ Sabine Weiss

When I am with Sabine as I was in November, I cannot believe I am sitting with a woman who is 96 years old. She is full of vigor and enthusiasm. She is the last living photographer from one of my favorite eras in the history of photography - The French Humanist Post War period - which gave us Boubat, Doisneau and Ronis.

I remember witnessing an incredible sight. She was only 91 years old at the time and was being honored with a big exhibition in Paris and there was a special book signing event which I think was originally scheduled for one hour at noon. There were literally crowds around the block with hundreds waiting to have their books signed and personalized. It went on for five hours and Sabine was patient, courteous and focused on everyone who was lucky to be in her presence.

That is what makes a great photographer.

“I suddenly understood what nature was telling me. I understood that you do not take photographs, you receive them.”

~ Pentti Sammallahti

Pentti is one of my favorite human beings and surely one of the greatest living photographers.

He adds another dimension to the word “humility”. I have never met a photographer so completely uninterested in fame or personal success, material or otherwise. He is totally devoted to his art and almost monk-like in the way he approaches it and conducts himself. He is the most holy, poetic photographer I know yet full of life and gentle humor which manifests itself in his sublime work.

Like they say in the theater “tragedy is easy, comedy is hard”, he creates gems of such seemingly simple human, animal and natural moments which are so complex in their construction and the dedication and patience it takes to capture them. His skills in the darkroom which are equally formidable are unparalleled by anyone working today. He would be embarrassed if I called him a photographic “genius” but like Mozart or Bach or Beethoven, he surely is.

“Photography is the easiest thing in the world if one is willing to accept pictures that are flaccid, limp, bland, banal, indiscriminately informative and pointless.

But if one insists in a photograph that is both complex and vigorous, it is almost impossible.”

~ John Szarkowski

I think John Szarkowski had one of the greatest minds I have ever encountered. Beyond articulate and intelligent, his early writings, especially his classic book “Looking at Photographs," nurtured my interest in photography.

Revered as one of the greatest curators of photography ever he was also an incredible photographer and printmaker in his own right. Every Monday morning he would bring in apples from his cherished trees which you see here to his staff at Museum of Modern Art New York.

I had the great honour of hosting the last public exhibition of his work. The week he was with us in California still fills me with such beautiful memories of great meals and conversations. Sadly, he passed away a few weeks after the exhibition opened. 

I owe him a lot.

“Photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing and when they have vanished there is no contrivance on earth which can make them come back again.”

~ Henri Cartier-Bresson

One day whilst visiting Henri in Paris in his apartment, I brought with me one of my favorite books of his - the long out-of-print, “The People of Moscow“ which I thought was full of unknown 'gems'. 
I pointed to this image of the gymnasts and asked, “Henri, I love this photograph...why have you never made a signed collector print of this image? I think it is very strong.” “Well Peter” he replied, “No one has ever asked." 

I asked him would he be willing to make three prints for me. “If you insist, I will oblige." And so it went on over many years. 

My favourite images of his have always been the ones I had never seen prints of before.

“Je n'ai rien à prouver, juste à éprouver.”

"I have nothing to prove, just to experience."

~ Bernard Plossu

Sometimes one yearns for some vibrant color in one's life. There is something so primal in this image. I’m not sure what it is about, but it doesn’t concern me as I try not to over analyze images. 

This one just got to me and I wanted to live with it. It energized and moved me and I hope it does you too.

"To me, pictures are like blintzes - ya gotta get 'em 
while they're hot."

~ Weegee

Weegee is generally know for his gritty, violent urban crime scene work rushing to get there before the police arrived, but there is a real tender side to him as evidenced by my favorite image of his... Easter Sunday in Harlem.

A moment of joy, community, relief, happiness and hope. Exactly what we are all wishing for now.

“I give the moment permanence.”

~ Manuel Alvarez Bravo

If I were to be cast away on a Desert Island with only 10 photos this would surely be one of them as it goes straight to the heart like a piercing arrow. Its beautiful composition and the soul of the image have haunted me for over 40 years since I first saw it.

It is timeless, eternal. What is she daydreaming about? What are we daydreaming about now in our isolation?

Maestro Don Manuel - thank you.

"I arrived early In San Angel, Mexico to photograph Rufino Tamayo and while making time, I decided to venture around his neighborhood. It was a Saturday and vendors were getting ready for “El Bazaar Sabado" en San Angel when all of a sudden this lady appeared with her cotton candy. 

Not too long ago I returned to the site where I took this image and the trees had grown so much it would be imposible to shoot it as I did in 1981."

~ Mario Algaze

I think this is talented Latin photographer Mario Algaze’s greatest image.

I am immediately transported into this woman’s life. It is shot with such tenderness and heart...I am walking just behind her.

“I was looking for a decisive moment.”

~ Chuck Stewart

One of the all-time great Jazz Photos by the highly underrated Chuck Stewart...this is a rare gem.

Sure it is about the soul of Jazz, but it is about so much more than that in my opinion. It is about the soul of a creative relationship.

“It takes the passage of time before the image of a commonplace subject can be assessed. The great difficulty of what I attempt is seeing beyond the moment. The everydayness of life gets in the way of the eternal.”

~ George Tice

George has dedicated his life in pursuit of the art and craft of photography. Spending time with him is beyond inspiring. His focus and hard work have resulted in such a powerful body of work. As an Englishman, he has helped me understand America in a deeply profound way, its nuances and sub text. There is a Hopper like beauty to his imagery which is universal. I bet many people’s first car was a VW Bug. I know it certainly was mine. We have been on a wonderful journey with George which I hope continues for many more years. 

Thank you George for the ride.

“I photograph the world around me. This is what I feel. The joy, the love, the pleasure that is in life. 

A good photograph is something that becomes more than a photograph when it has meaning and value that extends beyond the medium. If it is just a photograph it remains very limited.”

~ Louis Stettner

Brooklyn made Louis who he was, but Paris made him into the poet he became. He lived a controlled schizophrenia between the love of the two cities that he spent most of his life in. 

He was a true original. Real tough and combative on the outside, but a real gentle soul on the inside. I loved being with him when I came to visit him in Paris. We would intellectually arm wrestle on so many topics. He was a Moses-like figure, something out of a novel no one could ever write. I just loved his work and still do.

His widow told me recently that, "He met his match with you." I took it as a compliment and a tribute to the enormous respect I had for him, working creatively till the day he died.

“If you ask me what feelings the Eiffel Tower evokes for me, I’d have to say that indeed it’s a matter of sentiments. Those one feels for an old friend one is always glad to see again. A friend who was responsible for my first publication in LIFE in 1953. In the course of a long voyage full of more wear and rather less reason, laying eyes on this great lady again, you’re sure that at last you are home again. She is always there, quite erect, a bit arrogant as she looks down on us from so far above. More than ever she is courted by an increasing number of lovers who climb to conquer her. Her image marked our childhood and coming home from the country on a Sunday evening everyone of my children played the same game at the same age of around 3 or 4 of seeing who would be the first to see the familiar tower in the Paris sky.”

~ Marc Riboud

I was thinking today of all the wonderful times I have had in Paris with all the wonderful photographers based there. I sincerely wish I could just jump on a plane tomorrow, but alas no. 

Marc spent a very rich and long life as a photographer traveling the world, photographing people with such great empathy and a huge sense of justice. As his good friend and fellow traveller, Elliott Erwitt, said of him, “He was serious about not being serious." Of his own work, Marc also said “Surprises of every kind lie in wait for the photographer - they open the eyes and quicken the heartbeat of those with a passion for looking.” 

Thank you Marc for conjuring up all these uplifting memories again of your beautiful city.

“It’s out there in the world and has a life of its own. 
I’m happy for that.”

~ Judy Dater

Sometimes the magic of photography happens unexpectedly, when all the stars align in a serendipitous moment.

Judy Dater, a very skilled and talented photographer, was conducting a photo workshop on shooting the Nude, organized by Ansel Adams in Yosemite. Imogen Cunningham, the celebrated then 90 year old photographer (soon to have a major retrospective herself at the Getty Museum) was visiting to give a lecture. Twinka Thiebaud, the daughter of the great painter Wayne Thiebaud, was the contracted model. Et voila! it happened.

A few years ago an attractive woman walked into my gallery whilst this photo was on display. “That’s me,” Twinka advised.

Small world, eh? It still puts a smile on my face after all these years.

"Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves."

~ Abraham Lincoln

Alexander Hesler, a noted commercial photographer based in Chicago, arranged two portrait sessions with Lincoln in 1858 and 1860. The images from their first session displayed the presidential candidate with disordered and messy hair. During the subsequent election campaign, the Republican National Committee grew concerned that Lincoln might appear unkempt compared to his opponent, Stephen A Douglas. Hesler therefore produced this more dapper and well groomed representation of the candidate at the second sitting. The artist, George B. Ayres, purchased Hesler’s studio in 1867, a move that saved it’s contents from being destroyed when the gallery burned down in the Chicago Fire of 1871. 

This has always been my favorite portrait of Lincoln and has been a source of inspiration and hope, especially now.

“I like images which are very simple in composition. When you shoot in Morocco you have to be like a fox. Shoot very quickly.”

~ Bruno Barbey

Bruno is one of the great photojournalists. For over five decades he has been an inveterate traveller who has opened my eyes and heart to many places I wished I had experienced first hand but fortunately I can gain a little insight into from his great understanding and respect for the cultures he knows so well on all continents.

A scholar and a gentleman and a very gracious host with an enormous heart and sensitivity as is evidenced in this beautiful image.

“I was always aware of my subject’s feelings. Because my photographs made people look good, it gave everyone the confidence to pose for me.”

~ Sid Avery

I was thinking about Sid today. Not really sure what prompted it but perhaps because it is almost 20 years since he has passed away. And I last saw him.

I think for the last few years of his life there was hardly a Saturday afternoon between the hours of 1pm to 3 pm he wouldn’t come by the gallery. He just loved to look at all the great photographers’ work on display. I would introduce him to anyone who was there, “Please meet Sid, one of the greatest Hollywood photographers ever." He would love that and enjoy telling the anecdotes of a rich and wonderful life to our visitors. There was always a story I hadn’t heard before and it kinda became 'Sid’s Salon.' I would just try and disappear and let him hold court...I learnt a lot from him and he also had such a great eye for American Paintings of which he had formed a wonderful collection, which he loved to share with me.

A warm and generous spirit. Here is my favorite image of his of Audrey Hepburn on the Paramount Studio backlot with her dog called “Famous."

It doesn’t get any better than this.

“We should not be held back from pursuing our full talent, from contributing what we could contribute to society because we fit into a certain mold - because we belong to a group that historically has been the object of discrimination.”

~ Ruth Bader Ginsberg

I came across this image a few years back whilst researching an exhibition on Women and was so moved by it. Taken by acclaimed portrait photographer, Michael O’Neill, it was originally commissioned by Vanity Fair and first published in their November 1998 issue.

Taken outside by the columns of the Supreme Court, it captures the essence of a great woman who has spent her life fighting for women’s rights and gender equality and everything else she believes in. She lives her beliefs and isn’t afraid to voice them as an example to us all now.

Declan Haun dedicated his life as a socially conscious photojournalist, teacher, and curator. He worked as a freelance photographer for many important publications including Life Magazine who commissioned him to cover the Civil Rights Movement. This image was included in John Szarkowski’s celebrated exhibition “The Photographer’s Eye” at the Museum of Modern Art in 1964. In Declan's own words “My pictures are not very complex. I try to make them simple statements of fact or feeling”. He was certainly correct in this, I think it's his greatest image.

“A dream you dream alone is only a dream. 
A dream you dream together is reality.”

~ John Lennon

This has always been one of my favorite music images. It just brings back so many memories for me. I lived near Abbey Road Studios and walked by it every day for many years through all seasons and also being of that generation to whom John Lennon was so much more than just a talented musician. A symbol for my generation.

Many years ago I was visiting a wonderful collector and curator in Chicago. It was one of those blistering hot Mid-West days. As I was sipping some iced tea, I noticed out of the corner of my eye this exquisite image hanging on a wall. I just had to get up to examine it more closely.

Josef Ehm was an important Czech photographer, a colleague of other great Czech photographers like Sudek and Funke. I was totally consumed by the mood that this image evoked within me. My host noticing how I was smitten graciously allowed me to purchase the object of my affection. Ehm’s archive resides in the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague.

I know we all hope in this coming summer for the peace and tranquility this woman is experiencing in this image.

“I would like to be remembered as a person who wanted to be free 
so other people would also be free.”

~ Rosa Parks

I first saw this image many years ago in a magazine and it punched me in the gut which is always the sign of a great photograph. I did not know the photographer but after several days I found him. Meeting Builder, I gave him a big hug and thanked him for creating such a moving photograph. It moves me to this day. Builder is one special man, totally devoid of ego and a commitment to his craft. He has used his camera to address the systems of oppression and injustice in the USA.

Here, in his own words, is how this photograph came to be:

“I was near the Lincoln Memorial. I tried listening to the speeches and songs. King would speak near the very end. Shortly before King delivered his speech, Mahalia Jackson began singing. I noticed a contingent from the South (where the current frontlines of the freedom struggle were. I think it was a NAAACP group from Atlanta, Georgia.) Within the group, a young black woman wearing a dark kerchief on her head caught my eye. She was in the brilliant, bright, hot summer sunlight, standing out from but still within and a part of the crowd. I moved closer, composed and focused razor sharp on the woman. Her face/gaze reflected for me the intensity of the long and continuing struggle from the arrival of the first Africans sold into bondage in Jamestown in 1619, to Harriet Tubman, John Brown and Frederick Douglas, Denmark Vesey, Nat Turner, Abraham Lincoln, Sojourner Truth, Richard Wright, Paul Robeson, the Scottsboro Boys, Rosa Parks, and the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Martin Luther King, the student sit-ins in Greensboro, John Lewis, Medgar Evers. Her clasped hands seemed to offer an expression of hope.”

~Builder Levy

“Think of the magic of that foot, comparatively small, upon which your whole weight rests. It's a miracle, and the dance is a celebration of that miracle.”

~ Martha Graham

It is amazing to me that a whole culture AND a personal story can be told in one frame.

Arthur Elgort, most celebrated for his fashion work, loves dance and has a curiosity for other cultures as this image shows.

“Talk about a dream. Try to make it real.”

~ Bruce Springsteen

May 9, 1974 was a special night in the career of Bruce Springsteen. He was booked as an opening act for Bonnie Raitt at the Harvard Square Theater. His career had been struggling with two unsuccessful initial albums sales-wise for Columbia Records who were about to drop him, but his special magic was sure on full force that night and in the audience was the Rolling Stone music critic, Jon Landau, who penned the immortal lines which turned everything around. "I saw rock and roll future and it’s name is Bruce Springsteen.” 

This is one of my all-time favorite music images, but it is so much more than that. It is an image of passion, dedication, determination and focus. All essential elements for any artist.

"I love my past, I love my present. I am not ashamed of what I have had, and I am not sad because I no longer have it."

~ Colette

I love portraits, especially of writers, and this is one of the best of the formidable and courageous, Colette.

Janine led a pretty extraordinary life herself from risking her life developing film for the French Resistance to participating in the Liberation of Paris to covering the woman’s liberation movement in the 1970s. I remember an especially stimulating lunch in a simple Paris bistro hearing all the stories of her remarkable life.

What an honor to have met her.

Robert Demachy was one of the great turn-of-the-century Pictorialist photographers. In their effort to gain appreciation of photography as a fine art, as opposed to mere documentation, they were deeply knowledgable about painting techniques and carefully planned their images with acute attention to light and created hand-crafted prints with meticulous attention.

I have always wanted to own a great Degas, but do not have a spare $50 million. Perhaps this beautiful image is just as good, if not better.

"Everything negative - pressure, challenges - is all an opportunity for me to rise."

~ Kobe Bryant

I love sports imagery and I love portraits and this image has it all. Taken by the great photographer, Walter Iooss Jr., who has dedicated his life to capturing the greatest images of so many sports occasions it is more than just a portrait of a great athlete. 

Taken on the occasion of Kobe’s retirement, it has the power and pathos appropriate to the occasion. As Michael Jordan said of Walter, “He’s quick and he is good." I think here he is slow and really great and as quiet and self reflective as his subject is. A special moment, a special image.

I love rich albumen 19th Century prints that I have never seen before and probably will never see again. And I love images shot from behind which have such a sense of mystery. I like to be seduced into the narrative of an image whose meaning I cannot quite really grasp. Such is this beautiful image taken by an underrated master Italian photographer. I keep going back and back again to view it since I first purchased it maybe 15 years ago... What is exactly going on? As a romantic I think this is a secret assignation between two lovers. Maybe even passing passionate letters through the slit in the window. It doesn’t matter if I am right or wrong. I just know it intrigues and moves me. That is the gift this photo has always given me.

This was one of the hardest prints to buy in my career. I became obsessed with it when I saw it by accident visiting a dealer’s home. She just didn’t want to sell it and I just kept offering more ridiculous sums of money for it and after five years she allowed me to buy it. Such is the madness of collectors.

The woman is a young bride and I just wanted to know her story and still do.

“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”

~ James Baldwin

On this special day, this deeply felt image by the great Declan Haun gives us reason to pause and reflect on the present, the past and the future.

"As citizens, we knew we had ceded some of our individual rights to society in order to live together as a community. But we did not believe this social contract included support for an immoral system."

~ Congressman John Lewis

The Power of Photography is such that words are often unnecessary. The image says it all. I have always felt this way about this great Elliott Erwitt image, never more so than now.

"Still lifes permit endless expressive experimentation within a form that remains close to universal human experience."

~ Olivia Parker

This little gem of a photograph has always haunted me since I first saw a print of it in the late 1970’s. It just radiates an enormous sense of beauty and energy which transcends its apparent simple subject matter. It tells stories within stories and has a deep, deep humanity to it.

"In photography there is a reality so subtle that it becomes more real than reality."

~ Alfred Stieglitz

Emily Pitchford was a pioneer San Francisco Pictorialist. I came across this beautiful image in an obscure country auction where it was very reasonably estimated, but obviously I was not alone in appreciating its merits. I got caught up in the auction fever and ending up paying about 20x more for it than I expected.

But I do not regret it. It is like a great Degas painting out of a novel by the Bronte sisters. Beauty and mystery combined.

"Long after I am gone, I want people to be able to see - especially to feel - what I have seen and felt."

~ Carl Mydans

Carl Mydans was one of the great LIFE Photographers having cut his teeth working for the Farm Security Administration in the 1930’s, along with his distinguished colleagues Dorothea Lange, Arthur Rothstein, Ben Shan, Marion Post Wolcott, and Walker Evans.

This is real evidence of the Power of Photography - how one shot of commuters pouring over newspapers reading the story of President Kennedy’s assasination captures the emotional intensity of this moment in world history.

"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams."

~ Eleanor Roosevelt

Paul L Anderson was a much exhibited Pictorialist photographer. He taught at the Clarence White School of Photography and was a friend of Edward Weston with whom he debated vociferously the merits of Pictorialism after Weston himself had abandoned it. His work is included in MOMA NY, the George Eastman House, Cleveland Museum of Art and other institutions.

I saw this image and was immediately seduced by the beauty of the print and the emotion contained with in it. To me the solitary figure had just jumped out from the pages of an Edith Wharton novel. What was her story? Where was she going? What were her innermost thoughts? What was her destiny?

It still holds me in its grip after over 20 years. A true sign of its greatness. I believe it to be a unique print.

"The thing that is magnificent about photography is that it can produce images that incite emotion based on the subject matter alone."

~ Brassaï

Brassaï moved to Paris in 1924 and never left. He and that city just connected on a profound level and he made it his own even though he was technically an “outsider."

His objectivity and intelligence captured the nuances of the city from its streets to its cafes, its parks and monuments by day and night, and also its hidden secrets that no one had ever truly captured in such an insightful way before. More than anything, he understood human nature and the human psyche without judgement.

This is one of the great images from his celebrated book, “The Secret Paris of the 30’s” and this print was formerly in the collection of one of the greatest 20th Century art dealers, Ileana Sonnabend, so we know the physical print is special.

"Life was a joyous route, such magnificent sights and human splendor along the way that difficulties magically effaced themselves. One regretted nothing and would have it no other way."

~ Louis Stettner

Louis, in his 93 years, lived life to the fullest right until the end. He was for sure a Brooklyn boy, a true original character. To be in his presence was always amusing, engaging and insightful. This is one of my favorite images of his. I just devour newspapers and magazines but fear they will soon be a thing of the past, especially newsstands. So many of them have closed here in the last year.

I just love the optimism emanating from this image. You know this young woman is going to have a great day. She is so focused and determined. Whether she is going on an audition or job interview, she is going to nail it for sure.

"I photograph what my senses tell me to photograph."

~ Bernard Plossu

Bernard is one of the restless travelers of photography. Always on the road in the pursuit of adventure and beauty.

I was listening to the Beatles “Long and Winding Road” last night and this image sprang into my mind. We are all on a journey right now and none of us quite know where it is all leading but ever hopeful.

"My allegiance was always to the act. I wanted them to be happy. I wasn’t owned by a magazine or a record company."

~ Mick Rock

I grew up loving and listening to all kinds of music from Bach to Puccini to Reggae to Jazz. I have always been energized by it and sometimes a single piece of music can encapsulate an era in which you lived. I certainly never lived in New York during the 1960’s and 1970’s as I was growing up in London, but through Lou Reed I can certainly imagine what it might have been like.

Likewise a single image can evoke the same feeling. I was offered this print signed by both the photographer and the subject and had to have it to help me understand that era. One must never stop learning about things you know nothing about and this image helped me undertake that process.

“I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn’t it.”

~ Groucho Marx

“Character, like a photograph, develops in darkness.”

~ Yousuf Karsh

I grew up loving the Marx Brothers’ movies and whenever I need a pick-me-up I watch, “A Night at the Opera,” perhaps the funniest film ever made. As you dear friends can imagine we have all needed a lot of pick-me-ups recently...

To my amazement a few years ago I came across this rare portrait of them by none other than one of my favorite portrait photographers, Yousuf Karsh. These genius comedians must have given Karsh, best known for his more serious studies of all the great statesmen, dignitaries and artists of the 20th Century, one of his most special sittings. Oh to have been a fly on the wall at this one.

“Photography always shows aspects of things or of other people that you don’t know of, that are revealed through the photographic process.”

~ Flor Garduño

Flor is one of my oldest photography friends. We were her first gallery and our careers have paralleled each other. Whenever we are together memories flood back for both of us. We laugh and sometimes cry and reminisce. And reflect on the passage of time and all we have been through, together and apart.

Her great photographs are timeless and heartbreaking. None more so than this image, one of my favorites of hers. The subject is an itinerant Bolivian musician who travels through the country, playing at weddings and funerals and village events accompanied by all his worldly possessions. It has one on the most beautiful titles I have ever encountered.

"The ideal picture tells something of the essence of life. It sums up emotion, it holds the feeling of movement thereby implying the continuity of life. It shows some aspect of humanity, the way that the person who looks at the picture will at once recognize as startlingly true.”

~ Bert Hardy

I love train stations and would much prefer to travel on them than any other form of transportation.
They are great places also to view hellos and goodbyes.

Here a mother is seeing her child off for safe evacuation to the English countryside from the perils of wartime London.

So heartbreaking, but hopeful at the same time for a better future.

John G Bullock was a widely exhibited Pictorialist photographer in all leading salons at the turn of the century. He caught the eye of Alfred Steiglitz who included him in the Photo Secession’s inaugural exhibition of 1902 at National Arts Club in New York. His work is included in J. Paul Getty Museum, Metropolitan Museum and the Smithsonian Museu.

This print is incredibly atmospheric and tender and inspiring. I have always thought of it like a great Mary Cassatt painting. The light streaming on her white dress and her focus. If it had been shot indoors it just wouldn’t have the same beautiful atmosphere and power. 

"Alexey Brodovitch tried to teach you to be new and not be boring.”

~ Ted Croner

I remember vividly my first trip to New York from London. I was a young student and had struggled to get the air fare together. I got on a bus from the airport and as we approached the city at night with that amazing skyline I thought I had died and gone to heaven.

I immediately heard Gershwin in my head.

I was just so excited to be there.

This is one of my most favorite NY images. Croner was a student of the Alexey Brodovitch Design Laboratory whose students over the years ran the gamut from Richard Avedon to Diane Arbus.
Croner was experimenting off the cuff that night on Central Park South and produced something truely innovative. Whenever I look at this image it always evokes that first encounter with that energizing city.

"When I sing, I don’t want them to see that my face is black. I don’t want them to see that my face is white. I want them to see my soul and that it is colorless.”

~ Marian Anderson

Marian Anderson was an American singer of classical music and spirituals. She was invited to sing to an integrated audience in Washington DC. The Daughters of The American Revolution refused their permission as they controlled the hall. Eleanor Roosevelt, a member of DAR, immediately resigned and together with her husband Franklin D. Roosevelt arranged for her to sing at an open air concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial before an integrated audience of more than 75,000 peopled and a radio audience in the millions on April 9th, 1939.

An early seminal Civil Rights moment, a precursor to Dr King’s “I have a Dream Speech” twenty four years later. 

I have seen several photos taken of Marian Anderson by celebrated photographers such as Karsh and Philipe Halsman but none as powerful as this one by Alfredo Valente, a much underrated New York portrait photographer.

"Photography is an excuse for curiosity, a way to satisfy it. 
The photographer is like a father confessor, to whom all is told. It is a means of seeing without being seen.”

~ Jean Philippe Charbonnier

Jean Philippe is one of the great least known French classic photographers who came to prominence in the 1950’s. He travelled the world as a skilled photo journalist working for magazines like “Realities.” 

Settling back in Paris, he created a great body of work capturing the city he loved. This image of life backstage at the celebrated Folies Bergere could only have been taken by a Frenchman. It is the essence of nonchalance.

"Photography is not a profession. It is a compulsion.”

~ Fred Lyon

It’s not often I see a single image that drives me to seek out and meet the creator behind it. But such was the case with this extraordinary image. It immediately struck me as one of the most romantic, tender, mysterious almost "film noir“ images I had ever seen. Brassai eat your heart out.

How come I had never heard of its maker? Then I remembered a good photo publishing colleague had mentioned his name to me a few years back. I must have been rushing from one art fair to another and I had never followed up. Shame on me. I guess things sometimes slip through the cracks. But I believe in fate and that when things are meant to be they are meant to be.

Well off finally I went to San Francisco to meet with Fred in his studio and wow I realized I had just entered Aladdin’s Cave. I think Fred was just a spring chicken of 85 years old at the time but his enthusiasm and energy were contagious. Not to mention the intelligence and wit and charm. Wow I thought he was Cary Grant with a camera!

But it was the quality of the work that bowled me over. Great image after great image evoking a lost era of style and sophistication and heart and beauty that is unlikely to come back. And that special San Francisco light. No one has such an archive of superb work inspired by this unique city.

Fred is not just a humble, truly great and important photographer but a very special one-of-a-kind, gracious human being. A rare breed.

“Amateur Photography has the great advantage that its followers are confined to no age, sex, or conditions of servitude.
The question of sex especially is becoming a past issue.
It never should have been raised at all.”

~ Catherine Weed Ward 
“Amateur Photography”
American Amateur Photographer, 1893.

Myra Wiggins was a pioneer photographer who established herself as a much respected turn of the century artist.

Apparently she was a 5’1’’ dynamo, full of energy and determination, who garnered the attention of the great photographer and impresario of the arts, Alfred Stieglitz, who invited her to be part of his Photo Secession movement.

Her skill at lighting and composition was also noted by the burgeoning Eastman Kodak Company with whom she collaborated in a series of special advertisements for their new products. Which were beautiful tender artistic images in themselves. 

“The subtle charm of art, the invigorating influence of active recreation, the joys of delving in the mysteries of chemistry and unveiling it’s photographic secrets. All or any of these are in store for the KODAKER. In them is the WITCHERY OF KODAKERY.”

Eastman Kodak advertisement
Ladies Home Journal. 1900.

"Negatives are the notebooks, the jottings, the false starts, the whims, the poor drafts and the good draft but never the competed version of the work…….
The print and a proper one is the only completed photograph whether it is specifically shaded for reproduction or for a museum wall.”

~ W. Eugene Smith

W. Eugene Smith, by all the accounts I have read and knowing people who new him, was one of the most intense, driven, fanatical, impossible, genius photographers of all time. His work has always been a touchstone for me and I sought the great prints out wherever I could.

This image is one of them. Dr Albert Schweitzer, the Noble Peace Prize winner, was as equally passionate and driven in his life. A highly skilled medical doctor, a well practiced and revered musician, he seemingly did the impossible as a pastor and founder of a hospital complex in Lambarene in French Equitorial Africa to help the poor and disenfranchised. I knew quite well a celebrated English actress who when she was younger had voluntered to help him for a year having been moved by his selflessness. The stories she told about him have never left me...His deeds and words resonate now especially - “The purpose of human life is to serve and to show compassion and the will to help others.”

This image is part of Gene Smith’s last great photo essay for Life Magazine and one of his greatest prints I have ever seen. The perfect combination of subject matter and artist resulting in a vision of human humility and purpose.

"I remember my excitement when I turned a corner into Southam Street. A street I have returned to again and again. I think an artist must work intuitively and let his or her attitudes be reflected by the kinds of things he or she likes or finds pictorial. Attitudes will be reflected because an artist is a kind of person who is deeply interested in people and the forces that work in our society. This implies a humanist art, but not necessarily an interest in politics.”

~ Roger Mayne

I went to spend a day with Roger Mayne in Lyme Regis many years ago because I just loved his photos, especially his ones of children. Of course I related to them being a bit of a ragamuffin myself growing up on the streets of London in that post war 50’s era where everything was in transition.
There seemed to be a spontaneity about street life...I found his images unsentimental and engaged and full of heart.

We had a great day together and before I was due to return on the train back to London I asked Roger if we could go and visit “The Cob” area where one of my favorite novels and films “The French Lieutenant’s Woman” had taken place. We started to walk around the harbor when the most amazing rain storm just happened out of the blue and we were both drenched. Well that is England for you but it still was a most special day regardless.

Great memories which flow back to me whenever I look at his wonderful photographs.

"A face that has the marks of having lived intensely, that expresses some phase of life, some dominant quality or intellectual power, constitutes for me an interesting face. For this reason the face of an older person, perhaps not beautiful in the strictest sense is usually more appealing than the face of a younger person who has scarcely been touched by life.”

~ Doris Ulmann

One of the most beautiful fine art books ever produced in the history of photography is from photos captured by the great Doris Ulmann. She is most famous for her documentation of the Rural South but was also celebrated for her great portraits of prominent intellectuals, artists and writers.

Paul Robeson was one of the great renaissance icons of the last century. An all American professional athlete, writer, multi lingual orator(he spoke 15 languages), lawyer and basso profound concert singer and actor who was also noted for his wide ranging social justice activism.

As he once said, “As an artist I come to sing, but as a citizen, I will always speak for peace and no one can silence me in this.”

Another perfect pairing of artist and subject. When I saw this rare, exquisite platinum print I had to stretch for it for I knew I wouldn’t see it again.

“Jerusalem is a port city on the shore of eternity.”

~ Yehuda Amichai

To stand on the summit of the Mount of Olives as I first did so many years ago seeing this ancient city stretched out before you is one of the most inspiring views in the world. One takes in three millennia of history, beauty and pain. It is the soul of humanity. Spiritual home to three major religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Felix Bonfils is considered one of the most important figures in the development of photography in the Middle East.

May this city’s magical light spread it’s glow for world peace in these troubled times and the new hopefully enlightened era to come.

“A picturesque subject indeed!”

~ Napoleon Sarony on meeting Oscar Wilde 

“To love oneself is the beginning of a life long romance.”

~ Oscar Wilde

Portraits have always been one of my favorite genres in photography. I think I always learn something from them especially when the subject is someone of immense talent and accomplishment. The hope is, of course, that some of this might also rub off on the viewer.
Sarony was one of the most celebrated late 19th Century portrait photographers especially renowned for his portraits of stars of the American Theatre. Anyone of note turned up at his studio at 37 Union Square. 

Oscar Wilde one of the great playwrights and poets was an icon in his own right. He lived a flamboyant, tempestuous life. He toured the United Sates to enormous critical success, but died destitute in Paris aged 46. 

He wrote one of my favorite sentences of all time in his last days at L'hotel in Paris, the remembrance of which has been a source of laughter in these dark days.

“This wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. Either it goes or I do."

“Is it love or fancy,
I cannot tell you. All that I know is, 
She, with her innocent charm has entranced me.
Almost transparently fragile and slender,
Dainty in stature, quaint little figure,
Seems to have stepped down straight from a screen.”

~ Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica, Madame Butterfly. 1904.

During the 1870’s, the Austrian born Baron Von Stillfried was one of the leading foreign photographers in Yokohama, a primary port for trade and tourism.

This is an interesting studio composition where the scratches in the negative simulate rain and the impression of wind is created by means of the geisha’s kimono being pinned against the studio backdrop.

I love Pictorialist Photography and Henry Goodwin was probally the greatest Swedish Pictorialist Photographer. He exhibited widely internationally and was invited by none other than Conde Nast, the great publisher, to visit New York in 1921.

I was seduced the moment I saw this image and like so many special images it took a long time for me to seduce the reluctant owner to part with it. It reminded me of a great French Full plate daguerrotype...

I have never seen anything like it again. Haunting.

“Photography is for me a kind of meditation that widens my perception of the existing and evolving world around us. I seek refuge and simplicity in my photographs and find a personal resolution and fulfillment that I sincerely hope others experience as well.”

~ Jeffrey Conley

Of course everyone today is a photographer or can be because of the ease of entry to the medium which in fact has both its blessings and curses. It’s like all of us have access to the same letters of the alphabet, but very few of us can use these same letters and write like Shakespeare or Jane Austen.

I first met Jeffrey several years ago and was impressed by the quality of his work and his determination to pursue one of the most difficult of objectives: the creative life. I keenly watched his progress and the refinement of his craft. He is that rare species, an artist following in the tradition of the great American Landscape Photographers, Watkins, Haynes, O’Sullivan, Fiske, Muybridge, Jackson, Ansel Adams but one who also displays a distinctly original voice. His images are an extension of his personality: sensitive, stoic, patient and respectful, combined with a childlike sense of wonderment.

I look at this image and am in awe of how large nature is and how small we are in comparison and importance.

“A photograph is a moment. When you press the button it will never come back.”

~ Rene Burri

If you had to cast a globe trotting, swash buckling, man of the world sophisticated, intelligent but never pompous larger than life, tall, charismatic photo journalist with the most enormous constant smile on his face, Rene Burri would be your man.

I never saw him without his Borsalino hat... You couldn’t help but be caught up in his energy and enthusiasm for whatever project he happened to be working on. A major contributor to the hey day of all the world’s great magazines be it Life, Look, Stern, Paris Match, Du, or New York Times.
He was a witness to many of the major historical events of the mid 20th Century and it’s enduring personalities from Picasso to Che Guevara. He was a force of nature and a wonderful dining companion and raconteur par excellence but also a deeply sensitive and loyal friend. 
I never tire of looking at this photograph. It is almost the perfectly composed shot with the juxtaposed graphic elements of the road, the building and the rooftop and the sublime mix of sunlight and shadow. And then of course it’s mystery which I never cease to revel in.

As the maestro says -

“Did I know those men were there when I took that photograph? No. I went up there out of curiosity. I remember taking the elevator to the roof. Buildings weren’t guarded in these days. They didn’t have guardians as they have now. It was a question of getting to the top and knocking on the door. And then saying excuse me. So I walked out onto the terrace and at that moment those guys came from nowhere and I shot 5 images.” 

If I ever feel a little tired or reluctant to make another trip somewhere to pursue a project I just think of Rene and voila I’m up and running again just like he would!

Sometimes you find real beauty when you least expect it.

I was just popping in to say hi to a colleague in Europe in his gallery and by chance I saw an exhibition by a photographer I had not previously been acquainted with. That is what is so great about this medium, you never stop learning. This was the image I connected to immediately. The image was so exquisitely printed and the mood it evoked was so sublime. 

Bernard was there putting the final touches to the exhibition as it was opening the following day. He told me he had begun his life as a biologist and had taken up photography seriously in the 1970’s. It was such a great pleasure to meet the creator of the image in person. I think it is called serendipity...it is the perfect image for me now. Quiet and reflective and beautiful.

Born in Japan and arriving in Los Angeles at the age of 19, Mr. Kato was one of the area’s first art photographers.

He mixed in early artistic and literary circles and sadly passed away at the age of 37 years old.

His prints are extremely rare and I was fortunate to find this gem of an image in my early days of collecting.

It just transports me to another place, another time.

“It is a picture of someone who knows who he is, knows what he has to do and for the rest of his life, after this picture, he did it.
He preached a message of kindness, of bringing people together."

~ Steve Shapiro

Some of the most powerful words I have ever read were written by John Lewis shortly before his passing. To be able to quietly articulate and put down with calm and grace the summation of a life’s work so beautifully and succinctly is a true gift to us all which we should cherish and adhere to.

"While my time here has now come to an end, I want you to know that in the last days and hours of my life you inspired me. You filled me with hope about the next chapter of the great American story when you used your power to make a difference in our society. Millions of people motivated simply by human compassion laid down the burdens of division. Around the country and the world you set aside race, class, age, language and nationality to demand respect for human dignity.

That is why I had to visit Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, though I was admitted to the hospital the following day. I just had to see and feel it for myself that, after many years of silent witness, the truth is still marching on.

Emmett Till was my George Floyd. He was my Rayshard Brooks, Sandra Bland and Breonna Taylor. He was 14 when he was killed, and I was only 15 years old at the time. I will never ever forget the moment when it became so clear that he could easily have been me. In those days, fear constrained us like an imaginary prison, and troubling thoughts of potential brutality committed for no understandable reason were the bars.

Though I was surrounded by two loving parents, plenty of brothers, sisters and cousins, their love could not protect me from the unholy oppression waiting just outside that family circle. Unchecked, unrestrained violence and government-sanctioned terror had the power to turn a simple stroll to the store for some Skittles or an innocent morning jog down a lonesome country road into a nightmare. If we are to survive as one unified nation, we must discover what so readily takes root in our hearts that could rob Mother Emanuel Church in South Carolina of her brightest and best, shoot unwitting concertgoers in Las Vegas and choke to death the hopes and dreams of a gifted violinist like Elijah McClain.

Like so many young people today, I was searching for a way out, or some might say a way in, and then I heard the voice of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on an old radio. He was talking about the philosophy and discipline of nonviolence. He said we are all complicit when we tolerate injustice. He said it is not enough to say it will get better by and by. He said each of us has a moral obligation to stand up, speak up and speak out. When you see something that is not right, you must say something. You must do something. Democracy is not a state. It is an act, and each generation must do its part to help build what we called the Beloved Community, a nation and world society at peace with itself.

Ordinary people with extraordinary vision can redeem the soul of America by getting in what I call good trouble, necessary trouble. Voting and participating in the democratic process are key. The vote is the most powerful nonviolent change agent you have in a democratic society. You must use it because it is not guaranteed. You can lose it.

You must also study and learn the lessons of history because humanity has been involved in this soul-wrenching, existential struggle for a very long time. People on every continent have stood in your shoes, through decades and centuries before you. The truth does not change, and that is why the answers worked out long ago can help you find solutions to the challenges of our time. Continue to build union between movements stretching across the globe because we must put away our willingness to profit from the exploitation of others.

Though I may not be here with you, I urge you to answer the highest calling of your heart and stand up for what you truly believe. In my life I have done all I can to demonstrate that the way of peace, the way of love and nonviolence is the more excellent way. Now it is your turn to let freedom ring.
When historians pick up their pens to write the story of the 21st century, let them say that it was your generation who laid down the heavy burdens of hate at last and that peace finally triumphed over violence, aggression and war. So I say to you, walk with the wind, brothers and sisters, and let the spirit of peace and the power of everlasting love be your guide."

~ John Lewis (1940 - 2020)

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

~ Michael Kenna

For many of us, travel is an essential part of our professional lives and also an enormous source of pleasure which has now been curtailed. One of my favorite cities has always been Paris and looking at this beautiful Michael Kenna image, the memories are flooding back.

"Thousands of people walk over the Pont des Arts bridge in Paris every day. A fair amount of them must look East at the iconic view of Ile de la cite and take photos. Henri Cartier-Bresson did this in 1952, and Michael Kenna in 1992. Their views are almost identical, although it is interesting to note that the Pont des Arts from which Cartier-Bresson made his photograph, was not the same bridge from which Kenna made his. The original Pont des Arts was replaced in the early eighties. Kenna’s image is square whereas Cartier-Bresson’s is horizontal. Kenna is a little to the left of where Cartier-Bresson must have stood. Cartier-Bresson would have used his hand-held Leica to capture the moment. Kenna would have used a camera on a tripod for a much longer exposure for the water has transformed into mist. The architecture has perhaps changed subtly and Kenna has included some of the Baton Rouge tourist boats on the Seine. However, the similarities of these photographs made 40 years apart outweigh the differences. It is said that when the disciple is ready, the master will appear! It is predictable then that Kenna would recognize Henri Cartier-Bresson as the master and acknowledge him as such in the title of his own photograph."

We lost one of our great friends and photographers last week. 

Dan Budnik had a deep concern for humanity, especially for the underdog and dedicated his life and talent to showing us this. His civil rights images are some of the most powerful ever shot. His portraits of artists are especially insightful. His natural charm and curiosity and love and respect for their work allowed him privileged access to capture the essence of these often elusive and private people. He was certainly “in the room” during his long and distinguished career. I will miss his visits to the gallery and his friendship.

Rest in peace, Dan.

“The ideal picture tells something of the essence of life. It sums up emotion, it holds the feeling of movement, thereby implying the continuity of life. It shows some aspect of humanity, the way that the person who looks at the picture will at once recognize as startlingly true.”

~ Bert Hardy

Bert was born in London in 1913 as the eldest of 7 children in a working class family. He left school at the age of 14 years old to work as a messenger, collecting and delivering film and prints from West End chemists for a film processing company. Captivated by photography and combining his interest in cycling he began freelancing for The Bicycle magazine. There he came into contact with the new miniature 35mm cameras.

After buying a second hand Leica he worked for a photographic agency before being taken on as a staff photographer at the prestigious Picture Post in 1940, the English equivalent to Life Magazine.

Of course all collecting is autobiographical and this reminds me of my early days in London.
I just love the minutiae of English daily life especially all those cups of tea on the left hand side of the image.

Memories come flooding back.

"Documentary photojournalism’s always been my major preoccupation. In its derivation from Greek, the word photography means writing with light, and I have always striven to write with light, to inform, to enlighten, to be fair - but with passion and incisive understanding. 

I have always thought of myself not as a reporter but as a commentator, a visual narrator whose personal integrity is vital. I have aimed to be a credible eyewitness. One who cares about the world he inhabits. My aim has been to share my vision with the world."

~ Cornell Capa

Cornell was a true mentor who was unknowingly responsible for a large part of my photographic education. The institution he founded, ICP, was always my first port of call on my frequent visits to New York. In that beautiful old mansion on 5th Avenue, I saw shows that fundamentally changed how I felt about the world, a testament to the power of photography. In this most stimulating of cities, there are more famous cultural institutions, but the ICP always seemed like home. Such an institution is not created by accident. It requires a guiding hand, a person of great vision and heart.
I felt honored that he trusted me to mount an exhibition of his work in my gallery and to produce a special book for him, a small token of what I owed him for his inspiration. He was always so modest and self-effacing about his own achievements as a photographer for which he dedicated 30 years of his life too.

I just love this image. It is not just a photograph of a dance class but an insight into an almost forbidden society, taken with acute intelligence at the height of the Cold War.

At the gallery we love and respect the beauty of the photographic print. This rare and beautiful albumen print in perfect condition from the 1870’s is an example of the power of great 19th Century photography. Described as the Pearl of the Indian Ocean, the island Ceylon was conquered by the English in 1796 and for many years was at the center of the spices and trade routes. Rich in ivory, cinnamon, coffee, gems and pearls, the island became increasingly accessible during the 19th Century. Its exotic scenery was well documented by commercial photographers throughout the 19th Century.

The gallery loaned many of its Scowen prints for a major exhibition on Sri Lanka to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art which was on view from 2018 - 2019.

“Which of my photographs is my favorite? The one I’m going to take tomorrow.”

~ Imogen Cunningham

Imogen Cunningham spent her whole life as a feisty, independent spirit, defying convention and what was expected of her. She was a woman of strong values and towards the end of her life championed many important human causes including significant contributions for the Peace Movement and anti war activities.

She was also a great GREAT photographer.

This has always been one of my favorite images of hers. It would seem that every photographer at some stage of his or her career has attempted nude studies. The familiarity of this genre has made it very hard to create something extraordinary and fresh, but Ms. Cunningham certainly did this here. The composition is beyond sublime with her subtle use of light and shapes, overlapping arms and legs playing off the triangular form of the breast and the space in between.

She also intuitively recognized that by printing it small and not indulging in the ego of the photographer to make it “big” would make it more powerful and intimate. This is truly one of the true “gems" in the history of photography. 

A print of this image will be in a big retrospective of her work being mounted by the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, Spring 2021 when hopefully life may be more “normal” and travel to it will be safe and pleasurable.

Marc Riboud was one of the all-time great 20th Century photo journalists in the tradition of Cartier-Bresson and Robert Capa, traveling the world in search of ground-breaking stories. But sometimes as all photographers know a great image can be found on your doorstep.

Several years ago I was visiting Marc’s studio in Paris and by accident whilst looking through other material to curate an exhibition for the gallery I came upon this portrait of the great French designer Yves St. Laurent. I had seen many other photographs of him before. He had been shot by everyone including Avedon but this struck me as truly special. It was made even more meaningful for me when I found out it had been taken on the first day of YSL starting his own fashion house after having left working for Christian Dior.

Marc captured so brilliantly the style, intensity and ambition of the man dressed impeccably with his working sketches in front of him. As YSL said himself, “Fashions fade, style is eternal."

It is such a positive image of a new beginning, re-invention and hope for the future, something we are all wishing for now.

“The passing of every old man or woman means the passing of some tradition, some knowledge of sacred rites possessed by no other……..consequently the information that be gathered, 
for the benefit of future generations, respecting the mode of life of one of the great races of mankind, must be collected at once or the opportunity will be lost for all time.”

~ Edward Sheriff Curtis

Edward Curtis, apart from being a truly great photographer, is also one of the most remarkable and colorful personalities in the history of photography. Completely driven in his passion to record and document a way of life he knew was about to disappear he endured such personal and financial hardship to fulfill his vision. It took him 30 years to complete the project with many missteps and disappointments along the way that cost him his marriage and health. But the end result is exceptional and his legacy is secure. He captured his subjects with such reverence and respect and showed us their humanity.

This is a particular favorite of mine, one Acoma girl quietly sitting on a rock watching as her friend or family member fills a pottery vessel with water from a pool. What can be a more simple vista for an image, but it is filled with so many other levels of meaning for a way of life soon to be transformed.

“Happiness, sadness, beauty and tragedy only exist in our minds. 
Everything as it is.”

~ Miho Kajioka

In the tumultuous times we are all living through I am increasing drawn back into Japanese culture and tradition. I find some solace there to help me understand the incomprehensible and the feelings of uncertainty we are all truly experiencing. I am seeking something ethereal and calming in an era where everything seems fragile and vulnerable.

I find comfort and beauty in Miho Kajioka’s exquisitely beautiful and minimalist prints, especially this one. Four tiny images of lips are so powerful when hung together. Miho often writes and talks about the ritual of The Tea Ceremony and how important it is in developing her imagery. According to Kakuzo Okakura's “The Book of Tea” - “It is essentially a worship of the imperfect, it is a tender attempt to accomplish something possible in this impossible thing we know as life.”

As Miho says, “The philosophy of tea ceremony, it is like a gate where people go through and then they see the world differently with new aspects."

This is something we are all searching for now.

“I think small things are more beautiful."

~ Pentti Sammallahti

I must say I completely agree with our friend Pentti. Whenever I see giant prints I must say there is something that makes we want to run away and hide under a rock. I get a headache because I feel I am being beat over the head with a hammer and the image is screaming out at me, “Look how important I am!"

I much prefer the subtlety when I hold a beautifully hand-crafted gem in my hand. Such was the feeling when I first saw a print of “The Embrace." I guess I am a hopeless romantic but it is very hard to create a “romantic image” that seems fresh and alive and not forced or cliched or contrived. 

This is truly a special photograph which I look at everyday as it makes me happy. I feel I am there in the moment with this couple and I am caught up in their story because the emotion it emanates is truly universal and much needed. The print is just sublime in it’s tonal range and depth and power.

Thank you, Pentti.

“It takes the passage of time before an image of a 
commonplace subject can be assessed. 
The great difficulty of what I attempt is seeing beyond the moment; the everydayness of life gets in the way of the eternal.”

~ George Tice

George Tice is one of the true greats in American photography and this image is one of the all time great Classic American photographs.

I have loved it since I first arrived in America in 1979. The subject may seem commonplace. A gas station in New Jersey, where most of his great images have been shot, but it is compelling and haunting.

George has not travelled much in his career. He has found a wealth of subject matter right on his doorstep. This image emanates a great feeling of mood and layers of meaning and even a slight melancholy and sense of loneliness in the same way that Edward Hopper’s best paintings affect you. It is in the physical beauty of the print.

George has honed his darkroom skills over six decades of an intense work ethic like no one else I have seen. How do you get to Carnegie Hall? How do you make a print that just glows and staggers you in it’s profound beauty? Experience and in a god given rare talent and eye..
This is a great example of the poetics of place. Through George’s work I have come to understand America better and appreciate all it’s myriad small miracles and moments.

Thank you George for almost 40 years of inspiration and friendship.

“Photography helps people to see.”

~ Berenice Abbott

Berenice Abbott was one of the great 20th Century photographers. Her initial ambition was to become a sculptor but after living in Europe in the 1920’s and ending up in Paris as the great Man Ray’s apprentice and protégé she discovered her real gift, that of photography.

She returned to New York and produced one of her great projects “Changing New York,” one of the great architectural documents in the history of photography.

This is a rare, almost unknown “gem” in her esteemed body of work that I first came across almost 25 years ago by accident and have loved it ever since. In a way she was almost destined to meet probably the greatest architect of the 20th Century Frank Lloyd Wright in his last years. Given her great gift of bringing buildings alive. The great man was visiting New York staying at the Plaza Hotel preparing for what turned out be his last great project, the breathtaking, innovative monument to culture and one of my favorite buildings to visit, The Guggenheim Museum. Here he is almost a great piece of architecture himself, grand, stately but with a vulnerability old age inevitably brings.
He is staring out the window towards where his building will be with a touch of pathos that Abbott skillfully brings out knowing that this will be his last important project.

He died in 1959, six months before his final masterpiece opened, a fitting tribute to his genius.

As he once said “The longer I live the more beautiful life becomes.”

“To collect photographs is to collect the world.”

~ Susan Sontag On Photography

In my early collecting days I had, and still do, a great passion for 19th Century Travel Photography.
I had a visual wanderlust and desire to learn about other countries and their peoples. This gateway was given to me by an amazing group of photographers who, undeterred by the hardships of travel and often burdened by cumbersome photographic equipment, set forth across the globe in search of adventure and discovery which they brought back to the West. 

These intrepid explorers were sometimes soldiers, diplomats, scientists and even missionaries. Their first preoccupation was recording the landscape, archaeological sites and famous architectural monuments before turning their lenses on the native peoples they encountered.

What makes this image special for me is that the photographer shot this image from behind adding such a great aura of mystery and beauty about these women.

“Glamour is assurance. It is a kind of knowing that you are right in every way, mentally and physically and in appearance and that whatever the occasion or the situation you are equal to it.”

~ Marlene Dietrich

Eugene Robert Richee was an exceptional portrait photographer and helped define the era of Hollywood glamour in it’s hey day. He headed the Paramount Pictures Portait studio for 20 years and then moved to the Warner Brothers lot. He captured the beauty and appeal of such classic actors as Gloria Swanson, Claudette Colbert, Carol Lombard Louise Brooks, Veronica Lake, Anna Mae Wong and Gary Cooper amongst others. Truly a who’s who of the old Hollywood whose seminal movies we still admire and respect to this day as we stream online.

Marlene Dietrich was a one of kind actor and performer from her role as Lola -Lola in "The Blue Angel" to her unforgettable performance in “Judgement at Nuremberg” co-starring with Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster and Maximillian Schell. I have seen many great portraits of Dietrich over the years by the likes of Cecil Beaton, Irving Penn and Alfred Eisenstaedt but none of them come close to the physical beauty of this print which is a seductive as any of Dietrich’s poses.

As I have mentioned before in these posts collecting is very much autobiographical and I am sure this was one of the reasons I purchased this image. As a kid growing up in London I was an obsessive autograph collector. Hey it required no money apart from a couple of dollars for a book. I mainly collected autographs of all the great Jazz musicians who played the city Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Ray Charles. Security was so nonexistent back then. A skinny kid could slip back stage without much problem. One day I read that Marlene Dietrich was performing that week on her farewell singing tour. Off I went, scored a cheap ticket in the “Gods”/upper balcony. An incredible performance even though her voice was fading, the allure was still there. I rush backstage. Unusual tight security. No way I can slip in. Large crowd outside holding their autograph books. Can’t get anywhere close. She signs a few books and then is escorted into her limo.
For some mad reason I run to the far exit where the car must go through, the car stops and I approach the car, book in hand and you cannot make the following up.
I go to the rear of the car..No one else is there. Dietrich is in the back. I press the book against the window with what must have been some pleading look and like a scene from a movie she rolls the window down. I hand her the book. She signs it and hands it back. Rolls the window back up and the car speeds off.

I guess once a collector, always a collector.

“The most valid and proper use of a camera is as a means of recording aspects of human behavior. As time passes, social documentary photographs gain in interest, where as the “beautiful” photograph….progressively loses interest, becomes boring.”

~ Humphrey Spender

Humphrey Spender trained to become an architect at the prestigious London school of architecture the AIA but never practiced. Instead he became an esteemed self taught photographer. He became part of a group of creatives jointly called “Mass Observation” who banded together with the philosophy that “normal” working class people knew nothing about their next door neighbors and they created an impressive body of work to record the reality of daily life in Britain. He subsequently became a photojournalist for important English newspapers like the Daily Mirror and Picture Post before giving up photography to become an artist and textile designer.

His work is relatively unknown and scarce. He tended to conceal his small format 35mm camera justifying his position as “the unobserved observer." This image is such a great “slice of life." His work is in distinguished museums including the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, CT.

A few years ago I had one of these prints on display in the gallery and a gentleman came in and said, “My friend is a collector and I’d like to buy this for his birthday. I know he will love it.”
It turned out his friend was Elton John whom as we all know has one of the world’s great private collections of photography.

So glad it found a loving home.

“In reality, all we photographers photograph is ourselves in the other - all the time.”

~ Evelyn Hofer

Evelyn Hofer was one of the great, quiet unsung heroines of portrait photography. She was a protégé of the great Alexey Brodovitch who knew a thing or two about selecting the great photographers. She led a very productive life collaborating with distinguished writers providing insightful images to illuminate their texts like Mary McCarthy “The Stones of Florence”, VS Pritchett “London Perceived” and “The Presence of Spain” by Jan Morris.

She produced her own great body of work which reminds me of August Sander. The well respected New York art critic Hilton Kramer once famously quipped that Evelyn was “The most famous unknown photographer in America.”

I love this image. It just puts a smile on my face every time I look at it especially if you are a “foodie." Just simple human joy. I had never been to Barcelona before until a few years ago where I was working with some Spanish photographers. I just fell in love with the city and found it hard to leave.

“It’s all so simple - no one believes me - you strike a pose, then you light it. Then you clown around and get some action in the expressions. 
Then you shoot.”

~ George Hurrell

I’m not so sure I quite believe what George says. If it were that easy there would have been a busload of Hurrells dominating the field but there were not. He was pretty much in a class of his own as is evidenced by this extraordinary portrait of Dolores Del Rio, the pioneer crossover Hollywood Latina Actress Movie star of whom her friend Marlene Dietrich once said was “The most beautiful woman to ever to set foot in Hollywood.” She had an almost mythical status and was painted by Diego Rivera and photographed by many great photographers including Edward Steichen but this is certainly the most beautiful image of her I’ve seen. It has a special resonance for me as I was lucky enough to visit a few years ago the amazing house that was designed for her and her production designer husband Cedric Gibbons by Douglas Honnold and George Vernon Russell in Santa Monica Canyon in 1929. I’ve never seen a house quite like it.

It is hard to imagine that in the 1930’s and 1940’s there was no tv, no internet, no instagram or social media, no streaming and people flocked to the movies and read magazines to find their entertainment. And the images Hurrell and his contemporaries produced was the way people found out what was “Au Courant."

A simpler time indeed.

“I feel that technique is very important, though it serves only the same function as grammar to a writer. In other words, all the technique in the world won’t make you a great photographer any more than mastering grammar will make you a fine writer. But these help you communicate, which is an important part of what photography is all about.”

~ Max Yavno

San Francisco has always been a magical city for me. I get to ditch my car and walk, walk, walk even up those steep, steep hills. I have had the opportunity to go there often working with great photographers based there like Ruth Bernhard and Fred Lyon but also to exhibit at wonderful art fairs there and visit sophisticated, tasteful clients.

Max Yavno certainly had great technique. But also a great eye for composition. You see it in this, one of his greatest images and one of the greatest photographs ever shot there. The sense of precision, symmetry, shape and patterns flow throughout the image. Max started his life as a social worker and ended up being the President of the Photo League in New York before moving West so his sense of empathy was ingrained into his art. 

He captures the hustle and bustle of the city and even after living with this image for many years I always notice something fresh in it. It is truly multi-layered with many stories flowing into each other. Honestly all human life is here.

As his good friend and fellow great photographer, Aaron Siskind, said about him -

“In a lifetime of devotion to excellence, his passion for the well-made object has moved craft to art, transformed the ordinary to a luminous, ordered presence.”

“The smoke and the fire and the speed, the action and the sound, and everything that goes together, the steam engine is the most beautiful machine that we ever made, there's just nothing like it.”

~ O. Winston Link

Ogle Winston Link, commonly known as O. Winston Link, was a passionate, commercial photographer. He was obsessed with steam engines and was romantic and nostalgic for an era and a way of life that he knew instinctively was about to disappear foraging with small town America, so he wanted to preserve the memory of for future generations. He gave up his day job, closed his studio and used his savings to buy himself two years of freedom to pursue his dream project. His technical skill and talent was to realize that if you shoot at night the images would be more impactful.

“Hot Shot” is his “Moonrise Over Hernandez,” his most sought after and classic image.
Several years ago the UK Broadcaster Channel 4 made a wonderful documentary about Winston and they tracked down the couple in the car 50 years later who patiently modeled for Link. They were still together. The romance of the movies. A lost era for sure.

“Many photographers are naturally shy people. Hiding behind a camera helps them over come their shyness.”

~ Thurston Hopkins

Thurston Hopkins and his wonderful wife and fellow photographer, Grace Robertson, were always so gracious whenever I came to visit them in their cottage in Seaford, near the West Sussex coast. I would always discover new gems from their archives.

This photo has always put a smile on my face. I asked Thurston how it came to be and he told me the story. He was in Knightsbridge and wanted to pick up some special treats for Grace from the celebrated food hall at Harrods, the posh, fancy, high-end department store. He picked up the surprise delights and as he left the store he saw this parked car with the chauffeur and large poodle inside. Like all great photographers he was always prepared for the unexpected “gift” life sometimes gives you and he was ready to receive it. 

One can only imagine a mental picture of the dog and driver’s owner. I always think of it as the “Driving Miss Daisy” shot.

“I love what I do. Whether it is in the darkroom or out taking pictures.”

~ George Tice

I have seen grown adults cry in front of this photograph.

In my pre-Covid lifestyle we would be exhibiting at 6+ art fairs a year, all over the world.
Particularly in our US fairs whenever this image was on display it would elicit the most emotional outburst. People would tell us how their parents used to take them on a special outing to eat at a White Castle, especially our East Coast clients. It seemed to be one of their most vivid childhood recollections, like getting their first dog or bicycle.

So this is not just a beautiful architectural rendition. So many stories emanate from these walls. One of the reasons, of course, is that it is an exquisitely hand-crafted “tour de force” print made in the 20th Century. George is a true master in the dark room. The print glows and is so luminous. It has a stillness and almost “sad beauty” to it much as an Edward Hopper painting. In 1921 a young man Billy Ingram from Wichita, Kansas borrowed $700 from his family and set up the first one. His innovation was to produce small square hamburgers so easy to eat they were dubbed “sliders” and sold by the stacks. All pre-vegan, artisanal “farm-to-table” as we say now.

Yes, it evokes another world and another time but this image is a prime example of photography as memory.

“To show people the ugly doesn’t accomplish much. I came to the conclusion that I can’t really make much of a change in society’s attitude towards land use by just showing them what’s wrong. I’ve come to the conclusion you have to show them what’s right and inspire them.”

~ William Garnett

William Garnett was a one-of-a-kind photographer. Most landscape photographers are firmly rooted on the ground, patiently waiting for the right cloud or the right wave or the right light to approach their lens. William took to the skies to explore his vision. He did not have that luxury of time. He had to make split second decisions and react immediately to changing light conditions and disappearing shapes as everything was forever changing immediately around him. Previously, most aerial photography was just functional in nature and was done for strictly utilitarian purposes - mapping and surveying, urban planning or at times of war important surveillance of the enemy.

Garnett turned aerial photography into art like no one before or since...

There is a wonderful sense of wonder about his images. He too, like Ansel Adams, was an early proponent of the importance of protecting the environment and proper land use. His chief collaborator was his Cessna 170-13 small plane which he had owned since 1956. 

Ansel Adams summed up his friend’s accomplishments so well,
“It may be trite to think of his photographs as revelations but that is exactly what they are.”

And as William said,
“To fly in a small plane and see the variety of beauty the USA has to offer is a thrilling experience. Indeed with such splendor spread out before me I often feel guilty that I am up there alone."

He may have been alone, but he left us an extraordinary body of work to dream on and be amazed by.

“During long exposures, the world changes. Rivers flow, planes fly by, clouds pass and the Earth’s position relative to the stars is different. This accumulation of light, time and movement, impossible for the human eye to take in, can be recorded on film. Real becomes surreal, which is wonderful.”

~ Michael Kenna

Michael Kenna’s photographs from Japan are among some of his strongest. The photographs made of the isolated Torii gates at sea have such a strong and haunting presence, yet are so calming and surreal. The Japanese Torii gate symbolically marks the transition from the mundane to the sacred.

Kenna knows no limits with his subject matter, yet his approach to photographing has always been a Zen-like, holistic process of connecting to the world around him. Using minimalism and long camera exposures, he captures the passing of time within a single image, creating very surreal, haunting and “dream-like” scenes of nature. 

I’ve always felt that a photographer’s lasting importance is directly tied to the influence on other photographers created by their work. Michael Kenna’s vision has been surprisingly consistent for nearly five decades. Not only has his work influenced thousands of photographers, but also the indistinguishable “look” to his photographs can even be found mimicked with Instagram filters and digital camera pre-set styles. His work has often been imitated, yet that does not diminish the lasting importance of his photographs. Kenna remains one step ahead with his unique vision and continues to be one of the most prolific photographers working today.

Bravo Michael.

“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 it’s liberal attitude where anything goes.

I just love this place.”

~ Fred Lyon

Eugene Atget was the great chronicler of Paris, Berenice Abbott was the great chronicler of New York and Fred Lyon has very much the city of San Francisco to his own. No one has captured this special place with all its magic and mood better than Fred has.

Today is Fred’s 96th birthday and I want to salute his special talent and accomplishments not only as a great photographer but also as an extraordinary human being. His amazing generosity of spirit which he has exuded over a long career, more than 7+ decades in the making, has been a source of constant inspiration to me since we first met many years ago. His eye and his heart have enriched everyone who have been so fortunate to have known him, no more so than myself, his biggest fan.

He inhabits “The cool, grey city of love “ as his good friend, Herb Caen, once described their hometown.

“Don’t be influenced by others. Shoot what you like.”

~ Colin Jones

The film and musical of “Billy Elliott” could have been based on Colin Jones’s life. Colin came from a tough London working class, turbulent background and found some kind of stability by being enrolled in the Royal Ballet training school and then invited into the Royal Ballet proper and traveled the world as a dancer with that distinguished much respected company. On his travels he discovered photography and found he had a natural talent for it and started working with The Observer newspaper as a valued photojournalist in 1962. He was a natural story teller and was particularly attracted to stories about working class communities in Northern England. He knew he was living through a time of change that England was going through and that many of these communities would no longer survive the onslaught of modernization.

This is my favorite image of his which is not judgmental but has a deep sense of humanity and a moment of universal joy. The scene could have come out of a novel of D.H. Lawrence or George Orwell or out of all those wonderful English movies of the 1960’s that my generation grew up with, “Room at the Top," “This Sporting Life," "The Loneliness of The Long Distance Runner” and “Saturday Night and Sunday Morning.”

“I came to believe that there was something more meaningful going on – something stronger and more compelling, something that seemed almost woven into the fabric of the American psyche.”

~ Roger Minick

Now more than ever, people are flocking to the outdoors and National Parks in hopes of finding some temporary escape from our current global crisis. Unfortunately, not everyone has the luxury or ability to travel at this time. I’ve always found some transporting qualities within the photographs that hang on the walls of my home. Looking at them can certainly give that same feeling of being in a new place and in better times, and brings with it a sense of hope and being. It’s to be expected that we view art and photographs through our current lens of the times we live in.

Roger Minick’s photograph of the Airstream at Monument Valley conjures up those feelings of exploration and the open road. This photograph was part of his “Sightseer Series” made during the 1970s-80s. While he had often viewed tourists as a nuisance, he began to see them as perhaps an interesting subject, a representation of a uniquely American phenomenon. This photograph embodies, in its fullest sense, the American roads. 

Minick’s photograph is quiet and still. You can almost feel the raking sunlight at your back and the heat radiating off the chrome surface of the Airstream. You sense the billowing rain clouds forming in the distance. The dirt road you’re on is well worn from other travellers along the same path, yet the journey you’re on is all your own.

“Of course, the ‘good old days” were not all sweetness and light. There was poverty, racism, corruption, and violence, then as now, but somehow we all believed in the possible. We believed in hope.”

~ Arthur Leipzig

Arthur shot this image, one of his greatest, in Prospect Place in Brooklyn. He was a product of the Photo League, a group of idealistic photographers who all wanted to use the medium of photography to make the world a better place. They were all concerned with social justice. Most were the children of working class immigrants as Arthur was.

His work is full of warmth and emotion and back then the streets were the only place that children could escape their cramped and restricted surroundings. Arthur knew that New York was like theater all the time. There is always something going on and he wanted to be part of it.

“It matters not who you love, where you love, why you love, 
when you love or how you love. 
It matters only that you love.”

~ John Lennon (1940-1980)

It’s hard to imagine that John Lennon would have been 80 years old this coming Dec. 8th had he not been murdered forty years ago. The thought that he was only 40 years old when he died is so sobering and sad.

For people of my generation he was so much an iconic symbol of our own idealism and dreams. His presence and music spoke to us. His vulnerability echoed our own.

Brian’s beautiful image taken on the rooftop of The Dakota on February 25th, 1975 is not only a love poem to this special soul but also a love poem to the city of New York which became a refuge and home to Lennon’s restless spirit as it has been home to so many creative minds who voluntarily or involuntarily ended up living and being nurtured there in the hope of finding some stability in their turbulent lives. 

The Elvis pin Lennon is wearing on his jacket’s lapel makes the image for me. John always acknowledged Elvis’s inspiration as one of the reasons he wanted to become a rock’n roller.
I can’t imagine not being able to listen to Lennon’s music and never stop wondering what else he would have accomplished if he were still living...

As Brian says,
“He was authentic. He was sincere. He was centered. He was a stand up guy.”

“I’m just a fly on the wall.”

~ Steve Shapiro

“Age is a question of mind over matter. 
If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.”

~ Satchel Paige

I love quiet images that tell complex stories, such is the case with this Steve Shapiro "portrait" of Satchel Paige except it’s not a portrait in the traditional sense of the word. You don’t see his face. It’s not just a photograph of a pair of hands either. These are Satchel Paige’s hands, that belonged to probably the greatest pitcher in the history of baseball. But it is also a key Civil Rights image because Paige’s life is entwined with the history of the Civil Right’s Movement. And for that matter American History as a whole. Denied entry to the Major Leagues because of his race he began his professional career in the Negro Leagues in 1926. His life was not easy, born into a poor family of 12 children he eked out a living barnstorming the country playing anywhere he could get a gig. He soon became that league’s most famous showman because of his natural talent, self-discipline and dedication. He was a huge draw for both white and black fans. But after all the acclaim that was heaped on him by his white fans after the game was over there were still places he couldn’t eat at or hotels where he was not allowed to sleep in. He finally broke through to the Major Leagues as a 42 year old rookie after Jackie Robinson paved the way and he was eventually inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1971, but that took so many years. His story is both inspiring and heartbreaking and equally important to reflect on today. 

Joe DiMaggio called him, “The best I ever faced and the fastest,” and Paige admitted “I ain’t ever had a job, I just always played baseball.”

"The techniques of photography are not very hard to master. The difficult thing is to become a sentient, cognitive human being. If anyone is going to be good at this thing, they must push themselves to levels of sensory awareness that are beyond the ken of ordinary mortals.”

~ Jack Welpott

Like so many photographers over the past century, Don Worth found his way into photography when he discovered the work of Ansel Adams. In the early 1950s, meeting Adams would only further solidify his lifelong career in photography. Worth became Ansel’s personal assistant in 1956 until 1960. The two maintained a close friendship until Adams death in 1984. Like many disciples of Adams, Don took to photographing the natural landscape, however he found his true passion in his work when he turned his camera towards the more intimate details of plants.

Growing up on a small farm in Iowa, Worth was cultivating exotic plants by the age of ten. His childhood experiences shaped his artistic sensibilities and early love for exotic horticulture. Later in life, Don’s house in Mill Valley, CA would become a flourishing half-acre botanical oasis. His personal gardens served as his private retreat and the focus of hundreds of his photographs. 

Don’s photographs have an incisive clarity and quiet, meditative mood. His photographs are a departure beyond the world of normal appearances and transport us into a reflective harmony with nature that only Worth could reveal with his camera.

“My work is inspired by my life. I express myself through my photographs. Everything that surrounds me provokes my feelings.” 

~ Andre Kertesz

This is probably Kertesz’s earliest masterpiece and an example of what greatness was yet to come.

Born in Hungary, he was drafted into the army in 1914 and was wounded in Poland in 1916. The bullet injury to his right arm left it partially paralyzed and required that he undergo daily physical therapy which included swimming. Watching his fellow patients he noticed the distortions in the water, and the play of sunlight on it which was constantly changing.

I always have to remind myself, to my surprise, that this image was taken in 1917. It looks like it could have been shot yesterday it is beyond modernist and has the abstract tension of a figure apparently motionless but about to move.

Several years ago the wonderful David Hockney visited the gallery. As we know he has also taken many great photographs and knows a lot about photography and is steeped in the history of art. Underwater Swimmer was on the wall and I couldn’t resist the temptation to politely say, “I know you know this image, right?" As I am sure consciously or unconsciously it must have influenced his celebrated California pool paintings. He gave me a smile like a Cheshire Cat.

It reminds me of the famous quote which has been attributed originally to Picasso,
“Good artists borrow. Great artists steal.”

“The good photographer unconsciously studies people, movements, attitudes, expressions. He watches and waits for the significant moment. I do not like pictures where the subject is reacting to you, the photographer. The best pictures result when the subjects react to each other. The photographer is a witness, not a participant.“

~ Jürgen Schadeberg

We sadly lost Jürgen a few weeks ago. He had a rich and fulfilling life not without it’s struggles and hardships. He was most famously known for his classic photographs of Nelson Mandela but he produced a vast body of work documenting the effects of apartheid on South African black communities. 

He grew up in wartime Germany before emigrating to South Africa in 1950 and joined the staff of Drum Magazine, one of the most important magazines in that country. 

Empathy was part of his DNA as this image manifests. In 1955, he documented the forcible eviction of black families from Sophiatown, a racially mixed suburb of Johannesburg, famous for its vibrant live music scene.

This image evokes for me the joyous dynamism of a community whose spirit cannot be broken even in the face of unremitting oppression. The music and joy rings through as a testament to the enduring fact that nothing can totally extinguish hope and pride.

I hadn’t come across the work of Hannes Kilian before I discovered this extraordinary vintage print of my home town. I found out that he was a freelance German photojournalist who had worked for major publications like Time, Picture Post, Stern and Vogue. That’s what’s so amazing about collecting photography, you never stop learning and discovering things.

In his later life he came to specialize in dance photography and his special images of the Stuttgart Ballet made that ballet company famous throughout the world. But this image of Piccadilly Circus in the 1950’s just bowled me over. Of course that young man in the center of the image could have been me as it was a place I frequented often and his stance of dreaming and looking at the bright lights was one I often employed...well let’s just say for sake of argument it is me.

It is one of the greatest London photos I have ever seen. I was happy to see a print of it at an exhibition at Tate Britain a few years back called “Another London” where it was also on the catalogue’s back cover.

“Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert the integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it safe, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary."

~ Cecil Beaton

Cecil Beaton was a true renaissance man - writer, diarist, playwright, painter, illustrator, set designer, costume designer, dandy and not least one of the great 20th Century photographers.

This is one of his greatest photographs. On June 1st, 1948, nine fashion models, including the great Carmen Dell'Orefice (still working and going strong at 89 years old!) and Dorian Leigh, gathered at French and Co., the celebrated antiques dealer on Park Avenue to have their photograph taken decked out in Charles James's exquisite gowns. James was perhaps the most revered designer of his generation who had his European counterparts like Dior and Balenciaga in awe. Every garment he produced was deemed to be a work of art. James and Beaton had first met at school at Harrow in England.

Just imagine how difficult it was to choreograph and light nine models and get nine separate “performances“ out of them to create a cohesive narrative. Very few photographers had the experience and genius to pull it off but out of it came one of the most important images in the history of fashion photography.

Beaton’s pithy wit was sometimes on a par with Oscar Wilde. As Cecil once said, 
“The truly fashionable are beyond fashion.”

“Before a cat will condescend to treat you as a trusted friend, some little token of esteem is needed. Like a dish of cream.”

~ T.S. Eliot

Thurston Hopkin's dream was to work for Picture Post, the UK equivalent of Life Magazine. It was like a rite of passage to join their ranks.

As Thurston told me once, while walking the streets of London doing reportage for other assignments he met many cats that were made homeless by all the war bombings. He proposed to his editor that he do a story on “The Cats of London." The editor agreed and off Thurston went. Many of these strays had to establish themselves in the bomb sites. They were living and breeding more or less as wild cats would, surviving on the scraps given by friendly neighbors. Back in those days even the normal, “domestic” cats that had loving homes would spend lots of time on the streets. It was a common practice to let the cat out of the house before the owners went to bed as cat doors did not exist then. So even the kitties that had homes were still street cats first and house cats second.

The streets have changed, the cars for sure have changed, but the cats are the only things that have not changed in 70 years. The alternative title for this image is “Purr-Fect Parking." Don’t you just love that English wit?

“It is in the penumbra, between the clear visibility of things and their total extinction into darkness, when the concreteness of appearances becomes merged in half-realized, half-baffled vision, that spirit seems to disengage itself from matter to envelop it with a mystery of soul-suggestion."

~ Charles Caffin, 1910.

“Numakawa Lake, Japan” is one of Sammallahti’s most ethereal, tranquil and haunting photographs. A large majority of the image consists of a lustrous solid black of the trees, yet behind the darkness shines a silvery lake, scattered with dozens of small birds. This photograph has always reminded me of Edward Steichen’s iconic photograph “The Pond - Moonlight, 1904”

Sammallahti’s photograph of Numakawa Lake, Japan, is worthy to be deemed one of his masterworks - a photograph that fully encapsulates a photographer’s most exemplary and refined artistic vision.

“I can’t make a distinction as to what I like better, the photography or the jazz. I think it is all part of the same thing.”

~ Herman Leonard

There was no one quite like Charlie Parker in the history of Jazz. At age 11 he had just begun to play the saxophone. At age 20 he was one of the great ground breakers of all the previously adhered to “rules” and was leading a revolution in modern jazz. At 34 he was dead from years of drug and alcohol abuse. He was a kind of a Jackson Pollock figure. Bird’s saxophone was his brush. They both broke completely new ground and both were emotionally unsuited to handle intense fame.

Herman was the key chronicler of this music genre. He took the most iconic photographs of all the key players, Duke Ellington, Billie Holliday, Lester Young, Dizzy Gillespie, Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, you name them. He was living in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina hit and lost his complete archive of 8000 prints in the disaster. Fortunately his negatives were in storage at The Ogden Museum of Southern Art and he moved to Los Angeles to be near his family. 
We started to work even more closely with him when he was here. He was a tall, elegant and graceful man. Incredibly humble despite his enormous accomplishments. 

He never went for the obvious shot but approached his subjects with empathy and intelligence. No one captured the soul of Jazz better as is evidenced here in his subtle portrait of Parker and his fellow musicians during a recording session. A masterpiece in creation.

With Herman you always heard with your eyes. And as Parker once famously said, 
“If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn.”

“I photographed her during the Selma March from the small town of Selma to a march 54 miles away, ending on the steps of Montgomery, the Alabama Capitol but which had the effect of changing the Voting Laws which had discriminated heavily against black people. If you don’t have the vote, you have no say in government.

As a photographer, particularly photographing at a big event like the Selma March, you have an idea but you are never quite sure, which of the many photos you take in a day will be felt to be really interesting to other people. But this is my favorite photograph of Rosa Parks."

~ Steve Shapiro

On Dec 1st, 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks, a seamstress after a long day’s work on her way home on her usual bus, rejected bus driver James F. Blake’s order to relinquish her seat in the “colored” section to a white passenger after the “White’s Only” section was filled. She was arrested and charged.

This single act of defiance changed the course of history. She became a role model for courage in the face of racial injustice and started a revolution for freedom which spread around the world.

As she eloquently said,
“I would like to be remembered as a person who wanted to be free…so other people would also be free.”

“In the interplay of form, space, light and shadow that Henry’s keen eye reveals, he celebrates the essence of a complicated world distilled into a concise visual statement.”

~ John Sexton

When I think of the legendary Pacific Coast Highway 1, the mental image that comes to mind is always that of Henry Gilpin’s incredible photograph of the Big Sur coastline. I have seen hundreds of outstanding photographs along Highway 1, but none are more vivid and impactful than Gilpin’s. This image truly stands alone as probably the greatest photograph made of Highway 1 in Big Sur. It is the perfect representation of Gilpin’s devotion to the inimitable California coast. 

The silver serpentine roadway weaves throughout the foggy, shadowed ridges of the Big Sur coastline, while the sun glistens on the rough sea below. There are no people or vehicles along the roadway. In this rare moment, the road is all yours. 

Henry Gilpin’s photographic career spanned nearly four decades. Throughout the 1970s, he taught alongside Ansel Adams during Adams’s Yosemite workshops, in addition to having a career of teaching photography at Monterey Peninsula College for 37 years. Surprising to many people, Gilpin also spent 25 years with the Monterey County Sherriff’s Department, retiring in 1976 as a Captain. He devoted the rest of his life to his family, teaching and photography.

“When I shoot flowers or any still life or fashion, color forces me to be more abstract. I have to make the effort to transpose it in order to get close to what it was that first impressed me. For me black and white is closer to introspection, to memories, to loneliness and loss. I don’t see the same in color - it’s another language, a living language.”

~ Sarah Moon

Haunting is not a word I use lightly when thinking or writing about a photograph. But with this image it is the most apt word that comes to mind. Since the day I first saw this image that is what has happened. It conjures up a great novel whose central character I cannot stop thinking about. Her story envelopes me, her past, her future. I feel I know her, I feel connected to her. I need to hear from her.

This is the world Sarah creates. A deeply felt and romantic world out of a novel by Thomas Hardy or Tolstoy.

“We don’t take pictures with our cameras. We take them with our hearts and we take them with our minds. The camera is nothing 
more than a tool.”

~ Arnold Newman

If there ever were such a thing as the “perfect” photograph this might well be it. It is Arnold’s most famous image and it is easy to understand why. In it he captures the essence of the person he is photographing. Even if you did not know who Igor Stravinsky was you would surmise he was a pianist or composer or both. He was in his element or as photo historians have put it his
“Environment." The way the top of the piano reflects a musical note. This man is not an airline pilot taking a little break on a piano stool. Music is this man’s life. He even imitates the raised piano lid with his elbow bent and his hand to his face. The piano lid is indeed reflecting all the notes that are flowing around the composer’s head. Newman, through his own genius, is composing the photo in the same way that Stravinsky is composing the music.

Many great portrait photographers never left their studios for the most part. But Arnold had an intense curiosity and wanted to go out into the world and discover how his subjects lived. This suited his restless personality. He would talk your ear off for sure as he often did mine but that was part of his charm. He also was very self-deprecating as you can glean from his famous quip, worthy of George Bernard Shaw or Oscar Wilde -
“Photography is 1% talent and 99% moving furniture.”

“Ted Croner’s photographs give a vivid, impressionistic interpretation of New York. He sees the city as something alive and represents it with excitement, vigor and enthusiasm. He ignores technical rules and regulations and makes assets of what most young photographers look upon as liabilities.”

~ Edward Steichen

Ted was much admired in his time. One of the standout photographers in Alexey Brodovitch’s Design Lab he captured New York in all it’s dynamic energy. I think of him like a great Jazz Musician or an Abstract expressionist painter. Nothing is ever predictable in his images. You never quite know what to expect and are kept on your toes. 

Steichen included him in two important shows at the Museum of Modern Art. This is generally regarded as his greatest image. You just get caught up in the horizontal blur of the passing vehicle against the cinematic backdrop of lit buildings. He often used multiple exposures, restraining the camera shutter to allow maximum captured movement.

No less an artist than Bob Dylan chose this image to be the cover of his great album “Modern Times” which Rolling Stone declared one of the greatest albums of all time. Ted was a tall bear of a man with a heart of gold.

Rock on Ted.

“I was living in the Lido in Venice and every morning I took the vaporetto or water bus across to where I worked in San Marco. It was a matter of pure luck really. I was doing a lot of architectural photography and this was a very spontaneous shot. I only took one picture. In the center there is a reflection in the glass door of the vaporetto, behind which stands a man dressed in black. If he’d been wearing white that shot wouldn’t have worked."

~ Gianni Berengo Gardin

In 2003, a year before he passed away, Henri Cartier-Bresson opened his Foundation in Paris with an exhibition, “My hundred favorite photographs." Photographs that he had seen that had moved him throughout his life. He included this image by Gianni Berengo Gardin, one of the great Italian post war photographers. To be blessed by Cartier-Bresson is like being blessed personally by the Pope if you are Catholic. In a way it is more Cartier-Bressonesque than a Cartier-Bresson, but has its own uniqueness. I was honored to have been invited to the opening, a very emotional evening as Bresson passed away the following year and this was the last time many of us saw him. This photograph has haunted me ever since. It is a masterpiece of composition with its multiple levels of storytelling. The presence of gazes within gazes, frames within frames just holds the viewer with its gestures of common humanity.

“The camera for an artist is just another tool. It is no more mechanical than a violin if you analyze it. Beyond the rudiments, it is up to the artist to create art, not the camera.”

~ Brett Weston

Brett Weston seemed destined at birth to become one of America’s most prolific photographers. Born in 1911, the second son of photographer Edward Weston, Brett had a camera in hand by the age of thirteen. A lot of people assume that Brett merely followed in his father’s footsteps into a career as a photographer, but that’s far from true. From the late 1920’s until his father’s death in the 1950’s, their careers ran parallel to each other’s. Brett in fact first discovered the Oceano Dunes, where he would later take his father to create some of the elder Weston’s most significant work. 

Brett appreciated how the camera could transform subjects and how the contrast of black and white further altered the recognition of a subject. Thus, it is not difficult to understand his tendency to abstraction, a characteristic that would remain an important aspect of his work for his almost seventy year career. Brett didn’t concern himself with subject matter as much as he did with form and light. He could turn the mundane into the magical and the most ugly of subject matter into beautiful photographs. 

“Reeds, Oregon” is one of Brett’s most lyrical photographs. The vertical arrangement of lines appears to be a musical score, which makes your eye dance around the surface of the photograph. The image has no focal point; rather the whole photograph becomes the focal point. You appreciate the photograph not for the subject but rather for what it truly is, a tangible object of beauty to see and hold.

"I like taking photographs because I like life. And I love photographing people best of all because most of all I love humanity.” 

~ Horst P. Horst

Horst was one of the greatest fashion photographers of all time. He originally studied architecture in Hamburg and served as an apprentice to Le Corbusier in Paris but then switched to photography with the help of his friend and mentor George Hoyningen-Huene, a fashion photographer working for Vogue. Horst soon followed in his peer’s footsteps and in 1935 succeeded Huene as head photographer at French Vogue.

This is my favorite photograph of his, shot in his house at Oyster Bay in Long Island that he built and designed himself. It became a celebrated salon, where all the talents of that time came to stay and visit. People like Salvador Dali, Chanel, Noell Coward and everybody who had a true creative spirit in them were welcomed by Horst.

This image has such a sense of sophistication marked by Horst’s genius for lighting and mood.

“I am a photographer. I’m not an artist. I’m just a witness of what I see.”

~ Gianni Berengo Gardin

I’m not quite sure I believe dear Gianni. His modesty is not false. But It takes someone with a special talent to create an image like this which I have never stopped thinking about since the first day I saw it. A simple shot of a family taking a quiet moment on a Sunday stroll in the 1950’s on the Lido in Venice. 

It is much more than that. It is a great novel about a marriage and relationships. It is a powerful piece of cinema in the great Neo realist Italian Cinema tradition. It is all of these things and much more. But most importantly it is an honest portrayal of the human condition. A work of art.

“A photographer’s main instrument are their eyes."

~ Manuel Alvarez Bravo

I have never thought of Don Manuel as just a photographer. To me he has always been one of the great 20th Century poets whose pen was his camera. His images are lyrical poems. Even his titles are poetic. “The DayDreamer,“ “Daughter of The Dancers," “Bicycles on Sunday," “Good Reputation Sleeping." But none so more than this image, “What a small world”.

I have looked at this image for so many years. It has haunted me for as long as I can remember. It has so many layers of story telling that the definitive meaning has always eluded me which is a sign of its greatness. Perhaps it can never be fully revealed which is fine too just like a great novel cries out to be reread again and again.

Two people pass each other on a deserted city street. The woman is walking slowly almost making an offering while the man walks in great stride. Though their paths may cross their lives do not connect. A fleeting city encounter showing the ambivalence of modern urban life. Perhaps he is leaving on a long journey. Perhaps the white sheets symbolize a far flung adventure by boat. What if they had indeed met and connected how would their lives have turned out? We shall never know...