The Power of Photography Series

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

~ Henri Cartier-Bresson

This was the first Cartier-Bresson photograph I collected and it still remains today after so many years one of my all-time favorite photographs. 

Why?
I’m not even sure I can come close to articulating it. I just find it profoundly moving and beautiful. Perhaps it is just the simple gesture of the woman raising her hands in prayer against the background of that extraordinary landscape and the look given by the young woman at the lower left of the frame who turns her body towards her.

In conversation recently with the celebrated British photographer David Bailey he confessed to me that it was his favorite photograph too.

And I’m sure also for many others. Once viewed, never forgotten.

“Books are the plane and the train and the road. They are the destination and the journey. They are home.”

~ Anna Quindlen

Alice Boughton was one of the most important pioneer female pictorialist photographers at the turn of the century. Like her mentor Gertrude Kasebier she was a fellow of Alfred Stieglitz’s Photo Secession movement.

It was a time when female photographers went out of their way to support other female photographers. Not so much a conscious movement but they all supported each other.
She was a fine portraitist who specialized in literary figures and had a special gift for photographing children.

I believe this to be a unique print and was so happy to have found it .

“I think that as good architecture enhances a city, a good hair design/cut enhances the definition and expression of a face.”

~ Vidal Sassoon

“For me, one of the most important aspects of my work is to give people something to dream about just as I used to dream all those years ago as a child looking at beautiful photographs. I still weave dreams, finding inspiration wherever I can and looking for romance in the real, not the digital world.”

~ Grace Coddington

I came of age in London during what is known as “The Swinging 60’s”, a time of incredible and unparalleled energy. Vidal Sassoon was at the epicenter of it all and was responsible almost single handedly for modernizing the looks of the choicest and most beautiful women in the fashion and Hollywood worlds.

Grace Coddington was a young model back then starting out on her career before she became one of the most celebrated creative directors in the fashion business during her tenure at American Vogue.

Vidal's was one of those most responsible for “The Look” of that era.

“For me the most powerful expression is the simplest.”

~ Kurt Markus

Whilst working on location for German Elle, Kurt saw this solitary horse. In what seems like the most simple of moments he distills his deep respect for the West in a single frame.

He spends hours on each print in his darkroom to fulfill his vision and this one just glows.

“I somehow managed to come up with off beat ideas that clients liked. I didn’t want to do normal pictures. I’d be awake the night before a job and think about what I could do that no one else had thought of."

~ William Helburn

One of the true advertising stars of the “Mad Men” era, Bill was a larger than life dynamic character who lived life to the full. He never chased the artistic/museum validation as many of his contemporaries did, he just wanted to do the best by his commercial clients which he did and they kept coming back for more.

I just love the whimsy of this one.

“Creative photography does not have to have anything to do with location, project or causes as such yet it can involve anyone of them. It is a need to express something within the photographer. A creative photograph is one seen through the photographer. The reason for making the photograph is often unexplainable.”

~ Todd Webb

A scorching hot New York summer day. A hydrant goes off and all of a sudden a group of kids from all racial backgrounds join together in a circle in harmony and joy to embrace this gift.

One of the greatest New York images ever in this collector’s humble opinion. A symbol of hope that only mostly children seem to possess.

“Our work was always about the subject, about content. We photographers talk about art too, about photography as a craft, but taking pictures is above all about telling a story.”

~ Steve McCurry

This Calcutta street scene is a cacophony of visual noise. Steve spent a long time searching for a way to capture the energy and vitality of this most unique of cities.

To say all human life is shown here is a vast understatement. He is telling us a real human story.

“I saw all kinds of people get into photography because they loved it. But then when they became professional, their own personal work went out the window. And I didn’t want that to happen to me.”

~ George Tice

George came from a humble background and had to earn a living to support a family and himself, so in his beginning days he had to literally go door to door taking baby and family photos.
But he never lost sight of being a creative art photographer.

He spent nine years on his own time and dime to create an amazing project on the Amish and Mennonite communities whose way of life he knew would be hard to maintain in an ever changing industrial world.

It resulted in his great book “Fields of Peace” where this joyous image is illustrated, a tribute to his determination and talent.

“If you’re in the right place at the right time, then all you have to do is push a button. Being a photographer doesn’t come into it.”

~ Pentti Sammallahti

I’m not sure Pentti’s practice is as humble as he modestly states here. It takes years and years of hard work to be ready for such a moment as this.

He didn’t place the dog on the cow’s body and just step away. He was just receptive and prepared to receive this touching gift.

“The greatest joy for me is geometry.”

~ Henri Cartier-Bresson

One of Henri’s greatest accomplishments is a love poem to geometry. It has always been and I feel will always be the most balanced image in the history of photography.

How in that fraction of a second did Henri know that the reflection of the puddle jumper would be in almost perfect alignment. With the dancer on the poster and the reflection of the dancer in the poster on the ground.

Pure genius.

“Let us not take ourselves too seriously. None of us has a monopoly on wisdom.”

~ Her Royal Highness QUEEN ELIZABETH II

I think Her Highness has a great love of the outdoor life. It must be a great relief for her to be away from the crowds and all the indoor duties and receptions she has to be present at. I suspect she is at her happiest when she is outside with her beloved corgis and horses.

I know I would be.

“Fashion photography is singularly the most creative form of photography there is. Even though I’m doing a Volkswagen ad or Rolls-Royce, I’m still a fashion photographer.”

~ William Helburn

Well on this day his job was for Chrysler. One of my favorite spots in Manhattan. 59th Street and 5th Ave, opposite the venerable Plaza Hotel. Back then it is interesting to note that 5th Avenue was a two way street.

The glamour and elegance of it all.

“There are times when you recognize a design or a composition and you work it. You’ll wait for as long as it takes.”

~ Steve McCurry

Patience is one of the most important skills it takes to become as great a photographer as Steve.
Prayer flags hung to bring happiness and prosperity cover a hillside in Machen with the perfect human scale to illustrate the grandeur of it.

This image along with many of Steve's iconic and some unseen images are on view in The World of Steve McCurry exhibition in the gallery now through the end of May, 2022. Open for viewing Tuesday - Saturday 11-5.

“You see, you feel and the surprised eye responds.”

~ Henri Cartier-Bresson

Henri was living for a long time in Harlem at a time when very few whites were living there.
He felt a common humanity to the richness of the culture he explored there over several weeks.
It was on an Easter Sunday as he was walking the streets and was captivated by the beauty of this woman in her glorious hat and her adoring companion.

“We are always the same age inside.”

~ Gertrude Stein

“I don’t make up my mind before. When I photograph them and something happens then you have to catch it and understand it. Try and bring it out. I don’t think we should photograph somebody with a pre-conceived idea…..then it is not the person.”

~ Horst P Horst (On portraits)

Before he moved to NY as war broke out in Europe, Horst spent many early formative years in Paris working for French Vogue and other publications. He was a master of light and composition. He befriended and was befriended by the notable Gertrude Stein who lived her ex pat life to the full.

Here he captured her essence in her celebrated apartment and salon at 27 Rue de Fleurus with one of her constant companions, her equally celebrated dog “Basket” who knew everyone too.

“Preparing the “Stone Walls, Grey Skies” book I used the Bronte Sisters writings as research. You could say that Haworth Moor was Bronte country. Their writings were a great influence.”

~ George Tice

George won a year’s fellowship to photograph in North Yorkshire. He brought the same great insight there and understanding of the landscape and its people as he had done in his native New Jersey.

He also mastered the complicated and exacting platinum print process to create exceptional prints such as the above.

“The whole point of taking pictures is so that you don’t have to explain things.”

~ Elliott Erwitt

A little girl looks out a window. I saw this “unknown” gem in Elliott’s archive and was immediately bowled over like an arrow through the heart. I have seen many photographs of children for sure but this one had such emotion and power for me. 

This is no ordinary child. This is Elliott’s daughter looking out the window at the passing Macy Day’s parade. But it transported me and brought up all the emotions of being a parent and the vulnerability one always feels towards one’s child.

“ I know of no single formula for success. But over the years I have observed that some attributes of leadership are universal and are often about finding ways of encouraging people to combine their efforts, their talents, their insights, their enthusiasm and their inspiration to work together."

~ Her Royal Highness, Queen Elizabeth II

I often think that The Queen should also be Prime Minister too. She has such a vast experience and knowledge of people and dare I say the word “politics” too that she is amply qualified for both positions. I think she also keeps her mind very sharp as well by working on her jig saw puzzles.

She is formidable.

“There are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea”

~ Henry James


“Long necks. The thrust of the head in a certain position. The way the fingers work, fabrics work. It’s all part of my painting background”

~ Lillian Bassman

I must say I agree with Mr James. Breakfast meetings are just too early. Power lunches just too pretentious Just offer me a wonderful high tea rendezvous and. I’ll be there in a flash. Lillian with her consistent elegance and panache, captures the moment beautifully aided by the exquisite. Carmen Dell’Orefice who at 90 years old is still a working model and in much demand.

“In many parts of the world, people ply their trades out of doors, whether it is on a sidewalk, in a doorway or alley, or a makeshift stall. Their ubiquity enables people to have the convenience of stopping in at any time to get a haircut, get their shoes fixed, have their teeth repaired, get their ears cleaned, or have their fortunes told.”

~ Steve McCurry

In my long collaboration with Steve I have come to realize more and more that his photographs truly capture human experience and transcend boundaries of language and culture to tell a truly global story.

This image along with many of Steve's iconic and some unseen images are on view in The World of Steve McCurry exhibition in the gallery now through the end of May, 2022. Open for viewing Tuesday - Saturday 11-5.

“If photography comes down to vision and craft, vision is more important than craft, but I do make a nicely crafted photograph.”

~ George Tice

This one of George’s most beautiful physical prints. It is the perfect combination of vision and craft. 
It came about as a complete accident.

George was working on his much celebrated Amish project. He was expecting a horse-drawn buggy to come around the corner when lo and behold an old VW Beetle suddenly appears and being the ever ready artist he is George seized the moment and made photographic history.

It is one of his most challenging negatives to print but well worth all the effort he has to extend to get his desired result.

“I prefer winter, the worse the weather, the better the photograph will be.”

~ Pentti Sammallahti

Talk about suffering for your art. Siberia is generally regarded as the coldest place on earth. A true artist seeks out beauty whatever the personal cost in comfort and convenience in order to obtain their goal. We are fortunate to be the recipients of all of Pentti’s efforts in this regard in over 50 years of his hard work and passion.

This is one of my most favorite buildings in New York. I can just get lost in its magnificence and learn so much each time I enter its hallowed grounds.

Alexander Thibideau was one of the leading members of The Photo Pictorialists of Buffalo, a small group of photographers who broke away from the Buffalo Camera Club in 1906 to achieve higher artistic standards in their work.

He certainly achieved this with this dreamlike image for those who love books.

“It’s seldom you make a great picture.
You have to milk the cow quite a lot to get a little cheese.”

~ Henri Cartier-Bresson

When you were with Henri he was down to earth and often self-deprecating. But he was a hard working professional photojournalist and was always on assignment often to help keep his beloved Magnum Photos financially afloat.

He freelanced for publications such as “Holiday” and “Harper’s Bazaar." He explored the cities, neighborhoods and towns of Italy and Greece and many other European countries unveiling those countries' unique charm to the magazine’s readership. He was always open to find the serendipity and humor in everyday life.

Here he found in a Venetian Lagoon, a moment of abandonment of a young woman gleefully running across a bridge.

“The reason I enjoy photography?
The improvisation, the randomness and the unexpected.”

~ Martine Franck

Martine was one the most intelligent, elegant and dignified people I have ever met. Her graciousness and kindness to me as I embarked on this career was profound. I owe her so much.
She possessed a truly rare talent.

Her quiet manner, almost an innate shyness covered a strong passion and determination to create beauty. She found architecture and humanity in the landscape as is evidenced here.

“I take photographs to hold on to the ephemeral, capture chance, keep an image of something that will disappear, gestures, attitudes, objects that are reminders of brief lives. The camera picks them up and freezes them at the very moment they disappear.”

~ Sabine Weiss

This is one of Sabine’s most atmospheric images. It has everything in it. A great mood, magical backlight, night-lighting and a fleeting moment of physical motion. It is no wonder that the great Edward Steichen wanted to include her in his seminal exhibition “The Family of Man”.

“After a time you don’t want to have any photographic influence. It’s ok to be influenced by writers, poets, people in other fields, but not okay to be influenced by other photographers.”

~ George Tice

George has always marched to the beat of his own drum which is what has made him one of the great American photographers. You can always tell one of his photographs. His work always looks or points to a larger force at work beyond what they contain within their frame such as this one which I always call 
“The Last Picture Show”.

You are invited to linger with his images. They are not a quick read. We are invited to stay with them and to revisit them again and again. I always see something new each time. That is why they have sustained their interest for me after so many years.

He has taught me to understand America more deeply.

“Pictures don’t just walk past you. You have to run along to find them.”

~ Steve McCurry

At the annual festival celebrating Ganesha, held in Mumbai (formerly Bombay), the participants powder their face with “air”, a natural dye that is colored using flower extracts. In the midst of the raucous activities, McCurry asked this boy if he could take his picture. He agreed. The red powder accentuates the boy’s eyes, which scrutinize and question the viewer.

Steve uses color with a brilliance and variety like no one else. He creates the real and the surreal the same time.

This image along with many of Steve's iconic and some unseen images are on view in The World of Steve McCurry exhibition in the gallery now through the end of May, 2022. Open for viewing Tuesday - Saturday 11-5.

“When I photograph dogs, I always have something to feed them - some sausage or sardines. They are quite easy to befriend. Give them something twice and they’ll be your friend for life.”

~ Pentti Sammallahti

Pentti here discloses one of his “trade” secrets and has now let the cat out of the bag so to speak.
His secret weapon as to how to get our canine friends a little more cooperative to perform for his lens. Treats!

“Either you get it or you don't.”

~ Henri Cartier-Bresson

The world is in constant motion. It takes extreme concentration and focus to realize what is going on around you.

Henri is on the Staten Island Ferry. Like most Europeans, myself included, the spectacle of Manhattan laid out in front of you is somewhat awe inspiring. In what one must consider a self portrait as his own reflection is captured along with his subject who I have always thought bears a remarkable resemblance to the great Irish writer James Joyce whose novel “Ulysses” ironically was Henri’s favorite novel.

Perhaps this fact inspired him to take the image. I’m sure it did.

“You live as long as you dance.”

~ Rudolf Nureyev
1938-1993

“It is important for me to try and catch the person when they are listening or when they are in a pensive mood or have forgotten my presence. I rarely ask a person to pose for me as I prefer they reveal themselves as they wish. For me the eyes and the hands are most important and when possible I try to use natural light."

~ Martine Franck
1938-2012

Martine created an archive of extraordinary portraits of many of the great artistic creators of her time. Her soulfullness and emotional perceptions produced such sublime compositions. She truly interacted with her subjects instead of being just a mere passive observer, as is revealed here in her portrait of the great Russian dancer.

“It was a craft. I was a craft woman of photography.”

~ Sabine Weiss

Sabine never stopped working since the day she became a professional photographer. She had no airs and graces and did not consider herself to be “an artist". But of course she was and a great one at that when it came to her personal work.

She accepted commercial assignments to keep going and often was sought after by French Vogue.
Here is one of her great fashion shots full of a wry sense of humor.

“It is the wild, stubborn and unconquerable spirit of this ancient country that has drawn me back again and again for almost 40 years.
Much as outsiders try to reform it, Afghanistan never really changes. It has absorbed blows for millennia, but always continues on as before, defiantly 
outside of time as we know it. And yet without even trying to, Afghanistan changes everyone who spends time there. It has certainly changed me."

~ Steve McCurry

Steve began his photographic career in earnest in Afghanistan. He gained his International reputation from his early work there that set the pattern for his unique approach to storytelling.
While no part of this original building survives, progressive renovation has resulted in one of the most exquisite and sacred monuments in Afghanistan. Steve has created a balletic interpretation with his usual lush colors of this special place.

“Joined by a couple of lovers. Reciprocal discretion. I could not resist the temptation to photograph them in their charming embrace, against the panorama of the west of Paris. They pretended not to notice: perhaps they were even happy to let me have this record of their joyous love. The light of Paris is always at its most beautiful after the rain clears. A few clouds still lingered here and there, filling the sky attractively: another gift to the photographer.”

~ Willy Ronis

One of the most celebrated of all French romantic images. So deservedly so.
Toujours l”amour. Nothing more needs to be said. This image says it all.

“When you hit the target, there’s no need to crop the picture."

~ Henri Cartier-Bresson

Henri was the first great European photographer because of his reputation to be given permission to work in the Soviet Union unencumbered. This freedom of access allowed him to participate in many events that would be considered “off limits” to any other non-Russian photographers.

It’s the May Day parade and one is just swept up in the grandeur and energy of the occasion.

“Looking through the New York Evening News want ads when I started out I never saw any ads for “Artist Photographer” .
I would do my own personal photography at the weekends. I realized that there would never be a perfect time to give up my day job
so my personal work became my major work.”

~ George Tice

George looks for power and beauty in the ordinary urban landscapes and finds it. There’s something so touching and moving in this vista knowing that the Twin Towers are no longer there.

“It is one thing to make a picture of what a person looks like. It’s another thing to make a portrait of who they are.”

~ Paul Caponigro

1967 was a magical year for Paul as he got to spend some extensive time in that special country, Ireland. Discovering its landscape and people inspired his art. The faces of these children could only be Irish. He captures their strong individual personalities. I often think what became of them. Did they stay in their land of birth or like so many of their countrymen and women did they wander abroad in search of another life? We shall never know but perhaps one of these children is reading this now.

“I think everything can be painted because painting can change reality. But everything cannot be photographed and the photographer often comes home empty handed, with images which (often) have a documentary interest but which rarely go further than that. One has to be completely available, very tenacious and admit that many subjects won’t give any results but a miracle sometimes happens without warning.”

~ Martine Franck

Martine spent an extensive trip documenting a dying Gallic community on Tory Island off of County Donegal, Ireland. Her tenacity and hard work paid off in some magical images including this one of two girls expressing a moment of pure joy, as only children can.

“It is important for you to spend your time photographing things that matter to you. You need to understand the things that have meaning to you, not what others think is important for you."

~ Steve McCurry

Steve has always followed his own path and humanistic instincts. That is why he has achieved that rare thing in an artistic life - longevity. He never compromises his vision and approaches each situation with integrity and compassion and empathy. He does not shy away from his spiritual side and feels at home in Tibet, a place he returns to frequently.

Candles are a form of offering at the Tibetan prayer festival in Bodh Gaya, India during which thousands are alight throughout the area.

“Cities are a mess for my eye,
I prefer when it is silent and simple.”

~ Pentti Sammallahti

Pentti has a kindness and sensitivity that you experience the moment you are fortunate to encounter him. You experience the warmth of the world through his eyes. His images are like fairy tales that he unravels before us.

John Edward Sache spent an immensely productive 20 year career primarily in Northern India and produced so many beautiful landscapes and architectural studies in Calcutta, Bombay, Lucknow, Delhi, Agra and Cashmere. This particular group of vintage albumen prints are especially rich in their tonal range and condition.

“A good picture must move you, have a good composition and be sober. People’s sensitivity must jump out at you”

~ Sabine Weiss

I was very fortunate to find this rare image in Sabine’s archive a few months before she passed away at 97 years old and so fortunate that she managed to make and sign a handful of prints for me. I thought it was such a tender moment, which was not posed, whilst she was on assignment for Life in the 1950’s.

“For me Photography is visual pleasure”

~ Henri Cartier-Bresson

This has always been one of my favorite Bresson images and I don’t think it is just because Brie is my favorite cheese. It is in its apparent simplicity which of course is one of the hardest things to capture. Certainly one of Henri’s greatest landscapes. You are seduced immediately into the Allee of trees and taken there, lost in that countryside and enveloped by its beauty, encouraged to stay and linger forever.

“In the 1950’s newspaper photographs were even more cliche ridden than they are today. Moreover I detested their ruthless methods I was expected to adopt in order to obtain the sort of results which kept picture editors happy"

~ Thurston Hopkins
1913-2014

Thurston often wore his heart on his sleeve. He saw the good in everyone and was devoid of cynicism. It shows in his many heart felt images. A true romantic but with a great sense of humor.
Just notice the furtive look of the young man taking a sneak at the lovers on the chair.

“I want to be a part of a tradition of photography that depicts the world as it is, that portrays humanity as it is and documents world events.”

~ Steve McCurry

In June 1983, Steve McCurry was travelling by taxi through a stretch of desert on the Indian -Pakastani border in Rajasthan. It was extremely hot and that part of the country had seen no rain for 13 years. During the journey the weather suddenly changed and Steve spotted a sand storm approaching with a ferocious roar like a huge wave. He stopped the taxi near a group of women who had formed a close circle to protect themselves against the biting wind and searing sand.

One feels one is looking at a scene from The Bible. Almost a dream but so real.

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

~ George Tice

Yes we live in age of portable smartphones. This telephone booth now seems like it is from another century, but it is only 1971 and it has that Edward Hopper urban loneliness look to it.

Remember running out of coins?

"Henri was both critical and inspirational but we had very different working methods. Henri preferred to discover things without a plan while I liked to find and develop a particular theme.”

~ Martine Franck

Martine’s career was carried out often under the shadow of her much celebrated husband Henri Cartier Bresson, but she was no less gifted. She joined Magnum in 1980 and possessed a strong European sensitivity.

This is probally the greatest portrait of Henri ever taken. Shot in the appartment they shared for many years overlooking the Tuilerie Gardens, it captures his personality perfectly and his love of drawing, his first artistic undertaking before he discovered photography.

“I wait for photographs like a pointer dog.”

~ Pentti Sammallahti

I’m not sure how long Pentti must have waited to secure this magic moment. I am sure it was an extensive amount of time, a tribute to his unfailing patience and dedication to his craft and in seeking out life’s unexpected joyful moments.

“Life is once forever.”

~ Henri Cartier-Bresson

Four simple words sum up Henri’s approach not only to photography but his approach to life in general. I learnt so much from him and the lessons he taught me continue every day through being surrounded by his work.

A family relaxes on a Sunday by the banks of a river. In an ordinary photographer’s eye it would be a static moment. With Henri it has a gentle dynamism and tells a story of family and friendship.
How did he know to press the shutter just as the man on the left is pouring the glass of wine and the woman on the right is about to eat the tastiest morsel of the chicken leg in harmonious order?

“I wanted to produce an irrefutable record of a race doomed to extinction- to show this Indian as he was in the normal, noble life so people will know he was no debauched vagabond, but a man of proud stare and noble heritage.”

Edward Curtis

Curtis worked like a man possessed in his determination to preserve the memory and traditions of a truly sacred race before they were obliterated and the memories of a richly textured and spiritual life erased forever...

“I love this content dialogue between myself, my camera and my subject, which is what differentiates me from certain other photographers who don’t seek this dialogue and prefer to distance themselves from their subject.”

~ Sabine Weiss

Sabine always put so much of herself into her images. She was a hard working photographer in a male dominated profession and she identified obviously here with another hard working woman returning home after a long day.

Her sense of light and shadow were beyond exceptional.

"What is important to my work is the individual picture. I photograph stories on assignment and of course they have to be put together coherently. But what matters most is that each picture stands on its own with its own place and feeling.“

~ Steve McCurry

Pictures can offer themselves up to you - but only if you have patience.

McCurry asked these nuns if he could follow them on their daily walk around the city. He trailed them for several days until, with rain failing and a brightly colored building as a fitting backdrop, he captured this graceful image.

Steve McCurry. The Iconic Photographs. Phaidon.

“The single most important component of a camera is the twelve inches behind it.”

~ Ansel Adams


“They were a great combination. Although their work differed, their view points meshed - while each had something distinctive to say about any particular aspect of photography, they were generally comparable and complimentary.”

~ Charis Wilson
“Through Another Lens: My Years with Edward Weston”

A catalyst in gaining recognition of photography as a fine art medium, Adams joined photographer Edward Weston and five others in 1932 to form Group f64, an informal association of West Coast camera artists who championed the sharp focus modernist aesthetic known as “Straight Photography.”

First introduced in 1928, Adams and Weston became lifelong friends. In the spring of 1945, whilst Adams was visiting Weston at the latter’s home in California’s Carmel Highlands, Adams made this tender photograph.

It is not just a great portrait of another great photographer but a portrait of a great friendship cemented by a common passion and a dedicated lifestyle to find beauty and truth.

“Wherever there is light one can photograph.”

~ Alfred Stieglitz

Surely this is one of the most beautiful female nudes in the history of photography. Sensual and subtle, it was the result of a special unique collaboration between two great masters at the turn of the century.

Who actually did what has always been a matter of conjecture. But does it really matter? I don’t think so. The result speaks for itself. Stieglitz had a very domineering personality and White was known to be a quiet type. Maybe Stieglitz took control of the session but was open to White’s suggestions as the session progressed. Oh to have been a fly on the wall that day. The subject provocatively raises her arms but modestly turns her head and closes her eyes.

It is just breathtaking and the nuances of the print and the delicacy of the mood they created are unparalleled.

“I arrived one day and got into the lift at the magazine and there was this stranger in it. I knew he was a photographer because he was a bit lopsided.”

~ Grace Robertson

Thurston met his future wife and fellow photographer Grace Robertson at the celebrated UK magazine “Picture Post” where they both worked. It was the UK equivalent to “Life” Magazine and was always full of compassionate human interest stories.

Two friends say cheerio after probally a somewhat boozy lunch in the great somewhat bohemian Soho district of London. An area I know very well replete with all its great cafes, bookstores and in the heart of the theater district.

“Photography came as a substitute. I was painfully shy and found talking to people difficult. A camera in my hand gave me a function, a reason to be somewhere, a witness but not an actor.”

~ Martine Franck

I knew Martine was very ill and I wanted to do something for her that would try and take her mind off the pain she was in. I remembered an overlooked image of hers that I had found in her archive that I loved. It was taken in India in 1964 and thought it symbolized her own very spiritual side.

I asked her if she would allow me to produce a small group of platinum prints of this image for her as it reminded me of her own grace. She ever modestly agreed and I was happy and honored to be able to present the image to her a couple of months before she passed away.

“I have to admit, I like old things.”

~ George Tice

You are not alone George. I always tend to seek out old fashioned diners on my travels. I find them strangely comforting with their atmosphere of warm nostalgia and the semblance of simpler times.

“I have had the great privilege of photographing children all over the world and now that I have a child of my own, I have an even greater appreciation for their energy, curiosity and potential.

Despite the hardships into which many children are born, they still have the ability to play, smile, laugh and share small moments of joy. There is always the possibility that a child could grow up and change the world.”

~ Steve McCurry

Fatherhood has come late in life for Steve, but I am so happy for him to have the opportunity to experience this profound and humbling state. I have had the honor to have worked closely with him for 35 plus years. He has shown us the humanity of children in the far corners of the world.

Here in this abandoned shipyard, children have transformed this place of limited resources into their own special playground, a testament to their resilience. Where there is childhood, there is hope.

This image along with many of Steve's iconic and some unseen images are on view in The World of Steve McCurry exhibition in the gallery now through the end of May, 2022. Open for viewing Tuesday - Saturday 11-5.

“I like the smell of the chemicals and I like the darkness and the red light and the noise of the flowing water. If I am not in the darkroom for one day I have a feeling the day is lost.”

~ Pentti Sammallahti

Well this day was certainly not lost when Pentti turned his eye towards the Atlantic Ocean. It has such great power and atmosphere. One feels like one is there with him and we can experience the sounds of the waves as well.

He then returns to his little darkroom to work his magic and produce yet another gem of a print.

“An afternoon at the end of winter, Place de la Concorde. Before disappearing, the sun filters through the clouds and sensually outlines the curves of the parked cars. A fleeting effect, which needs to be captured on the spot. The Paris sky is - in the eye of this Parisian - one of the most beautiful and varied in the world, perhaps because of the relative proximity of the English Channel. But that doesn’t mean it is beautiful all the time. Furthermore we must never neglect special moments when they present themselves. Many of the images in my work are the result of dismissing so -called good reasons such as “I’ll do this some other time. I’m late, that’s enough for today” and worst of all, “So, what am I going to use that for?”

~ Willy Ronis

We are all so fortunate that Willy didn’t decide to go home early this day otherwise we would have been deprived of one of his greatest images. There is indeed something so magical about “The Paris Light”.

This image has it all. Paris, The Eiffel Tower, the shapes and lines of the cars and of course the unique mood and ambience of this extraordinary city.

“A photo must represent, partake, suggest or reflect the object photographed, but it is not a work of art because it does either or all of these, it must be alive and as a photograph have an existence of its own.”

~ Edouard Steichen

This is one of Steichen’s early masterpieces and one of his most important images. It also greatly impressed the hard-to-please Alfred Stieglitz who was keen to include it in his hugely important publication Camerawork.

Originally trained as a painter, Steichen embraced the soft focus, atmospheric tenets of pictorialism with its dreamlike and mysterious moods. The image is alive and haunting. A nude female figure seated, one knee raised and leaning to the left with her right arm extended across her body slowly envelopes us. The subject's face is obscured as it is shrouded in shadow and we are completely seduced as we are brought into her world.

“The working magazine photographer must differentiate between supplying editors with pictures they can use and giving them the pictures they think they can use.

That has been my main preoccupation and life satisfaction.”

~ Thurston Hopkins

Thurston was one of the great eyes of the 1950’s. He never achieved the same degree of recognition as many of his photographic contemporaries but worked in the grand tradition of humanist photography.

His wonderful sense of style and sophistication is on display here and I just revel in the “Englishness” of it all with the the littered glasses on the ground.

There’ll always be an England!

"Some of my photographs have always been a mystery to me in terms of how I arrived at them.”

~ Paul Caponigro

Of course it is often impossible to get a great artist such as Paul to articulate precisely their creative process. It seems even inappropriate and intrusive to try. That is a private matter. What is most important is the result and in this image the result speaks for itself. It is just beautiful and meditative.

Maybe Paul intended it as a metaphor for life’s journey with all its twists and turns and unintended moments, but most likely not.

One can just simply be appreciative that it exists and enjoy it.

"Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst.”

~ Henri Cartier-Bresson

This was obviously not one of Henri’s first images as it great and iconic. Almost a Fellini moment.
He tackled this subject, two sex workers in Mexico City, in an unobtrusive and non-judgmental manner. It was an arena that not many photographers had attempted to document before. What makes it stand out was that Henri photographed them not as prostitutes but just as women posing for a portrait, a double portrait at that with a deep human perception and understanding of which he was a master.

“It was during the summer vacation. We had joined my wife Marie-Annes’s parents in a village in the Gironde. They knew this winemaker who made very good wine and during a visit I thought he had such an amazing “mug” that I just had to photograph him.”

~ Willy Ronis

Here is a portrait of a happy man. He does not need too much help from any analyst. He is content in his simple pleasure.

Willy was right. What a face!

“Art is both love and friendship and understanding. It is both the taking and giving of beauty.”

~ Ansel Adams

These are some of the most simple and moving words I have ever read about the power of art.
Ansel was of course most well known for his epic images of the American Landscape,
but here we see another side of his work. A very rare “portrait” of his friend the San Francisco sculptor Annette Rosenshine.

We never see her face but we understand the mutual respect of one artist to another in this most tender of images.

“I had been carrying around in my head since I was a boy, a great many images which would surface on my consciousness at the appropriate moment and dictate the formal design of a picture. I wanted to tell stories through pictures.”

~ Thurston Hopkins

Thurston was one of the most underrated, great photographers I had the pleasure to work with.
He trained as a painter and graphic designer before taking up photography. He had a great, great sense of composition and could find joy everywhere. As is evidenced by these two girls in a poor part of London where I was also born.

“To say photography is intrusive is a load of nonsense. All you are doing is plucking an invisible moment out and making it last.”

~ Grace Robertson

Grace had a great gift with children and was alway so perceptive about everything. Here her eye focuses on the outsider little girl amidst all the boys playing in the park.

“During the day, young people spent their time either in the street or in one of their regular local cafes, such as Popoff or Le Bidule. This image was made in the latter establishment, lit mainly by a match. 
1/10 second. F/1.9. There is no miracle: a match held 4 in away from the face gives more light than a 75-watt bulb hanging 5 ft away.”

~ Willy Ronis

Willy makes it sound so easy to create an image of such technical brilliance and mood. But it takes a lifetime of hard work and dedication and passion and extraordinary talent to get to that point where it seems so effortless.

“I spent 3 Sundays going back each week to Venice Beach before the subjects “stopped flexing for my camera" and resumed posing for each other.”

~ Max Yavno

This is one of Max’s greatest images and so full of life and energy. A truly iconic LA image.

A lovely anecdote: I had a print of this image up in the gallery recently and a lovely elderly woman came up to me and said, “I am that little girl hanging onto that rafter in the photograph”.

She told me she lived right near the beach and every Sunday she would leave her tiny apartment and watch the body-building guys perform for the crowds and soak up the sun.

Another more innocent era for sure.

“I felt lapped in calm and beauty and luxury and glamour- and yet as though I were in my own house, not just posing in it but living in it as myself."

~ Lisa Fonssagrives

“You should find these things yourself. You should never copy. I never look at other photographers work. Ypu have to see it for yourself.”

~ Horst P. Horst

Horst was a true gentleman both on and off the set. He established such a close rapport with many of the era’s top models who died to work with him. No one more than the great Lisa Fonssagrives who later married the great Irving Penn.

Here is one of their most beautiful almost surreal collaborations.

“Time proves the value of a photograph. Only time can decide if a photo becomes important.”

~ Louis Stettner

Well this image was taken over 70 years ago and I have long appreciated its humanity. On the surface a simple mother and child photograph but its emotion and joy and spirit exude much more than that.

I know people will be reflecting on its strength in another 70 plus years.

“This scene took place on Rue Rambuteau, in front of Les Halles market, the corner of a cafe. It is backlit just as I like it, a nice shot of sun. The opportunity was there to be seized."

~ Willy Ronis

The war in Europe was finally over and moments of daily joy started to come back and there was the wonderful Willy with his openness and heart to record it.

“I strive for individual pictures that will burn into people’s memories.”

~ Steve McCurry

This is one of those unforgettable images Steve is referring to. At the annual festival celebrating Ganesha, held in Mumbai (formerly Bombay) the participants powder their faces with a natural dye that is colored using flower extracts. In the midst of the raucous activities, McCurry asked this boy if he could take his picture. He agreed. The red powder accentuates the boy’s eyes, which scrutiinize and question the viewer.

“Everything I’ve photographed exists regardless of me, my role is only to be receptive. The most important thing is the luck. Behind every good image there is the good luck too. Sometimes when you are in the right place in the right moment, you’ll feel that the image is a gift and even that doesn’t matter who is behind the camera."

~ Pentti Sammallahti

Of course Pentti is right. Luck is often an important ingredient in a successful image. But much more important is the real talent and vision and experience to realize when you are lucky.

“At the still point of the turning world
Neither flesh nor freshness
Neither from nor towards at the still point, there the dance is
But neither arrest nor movement.
And do not call it fixity 
Wherepast and future arengathered.
Neither movement from nor towards
Neither ascent nor decline
Except for the point, the still point
There would be no dance and there is only the dance.”

~ T.S. Eliot “Burnt Norton”

We are Sarah’s dance partner and she takes us dancing into her own unique world created by her own unique visual language which is timeless and a mixture of fantasy and dream but always touched by a sense of mystery and above all beauty.

“My work is all about one individual to another individual who is looking at the photograph.”

~ Louis Stettner

Louis was never one to talk too much about his images in intellectual or theoretical theses.
He was just a warm man with deep feelings who wanted to share his own “Joie de Vivre” with others.

This is one such example taken late in his life.

“I probally took this photograph while going to the Duffort lab, near Severes Babylone. The position of the sun, in the axis of rue de Sevres, tells me that it was taken in the afternoon. As a photographer who often works outdoors, I was very interested in cosmography. So, whatever the city, I know before going to the location, just by reading the map, at what time of day I will find the best lighting - if the sun turns up, of course. The back light, (it’s crazy how much backlight fascinates me!) made me choose this spot, to have the awning on the left and the veiled sun in front. I had taken two shots with little enthusiasm and then suddenly, this woman appeared out in the open!
Jubilation was immediately followed by a twinge of unease, as is always the case in these delicate situations: had I pressed the shutter at the crucial moment?”

~ Willy Ronis

Willy needn’t have stressed about this. He took the perfect shot. This has always been one of my most favorite images in his extraordinary body of work. The perfect composition to capture the perfect mood of a perfect moment of a magical Paris afternoon light.

“Most of my photos are grounded in people. I look for the unguarded moment, the essential soul peeking out, experience etched on a person’s face.”

~ Steve McCurry

"Haunting" does not do justice to the power of this image. I think this is one of Steve’s greatest portraits to date.

This young child has fled the civil war in Afghanistan and was living in Pakistan when McCurry took this picture. The delicate emerald shawl, her rich blue eyes and serene gaze all evoke a deep sense of the spiritual.

“My eyes search for people who are grateful for life, people who forgive, whose doubts have been removed, who understand the truth, whose enduring spirit is filled by such piercing light as to provide 
their present and future with hope.”

~ Louis Faurer

Louis was one of the greatest, least well-known important street photographers of the 20th Century. Real success seems to have eluded him his whole life unlike many of his great contemporaries like Robert Franck and William Klein. Even Diane Arbus was his student. He died penniless in a nursing home on the Upper West Side in New York in 2001.

His personality was quirky to say the least but his talent was undeniable.

“I accepted the obligation of showing the clothes. Sharp, all the buttons, pleats and whatever. As long as I did that I found I could do pretty much what I wanted with the rest - backgrounds, attitudes, situations.”

~ William Klein

Working with one of the great models of her generation, Simone D'aillencourt, William Klein created one of his all-time great fashion photographs. Its success is because it is all attitude not only the model’s but everyone around her.

Those lips! Not to mention the clothes.

“The world is so interesting and every place is worth to visit. Especially I love to photograph in remote, quiet places with vanishing things. When the world has changed, the photograph is left.”

~ Pentti Sammallahti

Many of Pentti’s best landscapes are just exquisite visuals haikus. Just like this one. One can stare at it forever and just get lost in its beauty.

“My intention is to make my perception of anything become the subject itself. I aim to make photographs that have no beginning. And no end.”

~ Ralph Gibson

When I first saw this photograph I could not understand why I was so completely drawn into its “mise en scene”. A waiter is carrying a letter to someone in a restaurant. Is that what is happening? I’m not sure. Who is the recipient? What message is contained in the envelope? Is it a goodbye?

I will never know and Ralph Gibson the photographer who created it will never know. But it doesn’t matter. I am moved by it and caught up in it and I hope you will be too. And really that is all that matters.

I think it is beautiful. That’s all.

“I had the Guggenheim, I had photos in the Museum of Modern Art and I was starving!”

~ Max Yavno

Max was one of the great American photographers of his era and the first photographer I met when I moved to California in 1979. He was the great Chronicler of Los Angeles in the same way Berenice Abbott was the great chronicler of New York. I learnt so much from him about the logistics of the city and its hidden urban beauty.

He was accorded many awards including the Guggenheim in 1951 and no less a curatorial giant than Edward Steichen selected 20 of his photographs for the permanent collection of New York’s Museum of Modern Art the year before in 1950. But he struggled most of his life to actually earn a living from his talent, not an unusual story sadly.

His hand-crafted, dark room prints are just amazing to behold especially this one with its" film noir" graphic simplicity. What an eye!

“A picture can express a universal humanism or simply reveal a delicate and poignant truth be expressing a slice life that might otherwise pass unnoticed.”

~ Steve McCurry

For those in need, a street corner or stop sign offers an opportune location to ask passers-by for help. Yet, while only separated by the thickness of a window, the distance between the inside of this car and the woman with her child is vast.

“We were spending our summer vacation near Aubagne where I photographed this pétanque player. It is an unordinary scene, but I found the man very colorful and graceful in his posture.”

~ Willy Ronis

I think many of us would like to grow old like his. With a smile on our faces doing something we love.

“The studio became, for each of us, a sort of neutral area. It was not their home, as I had brought this alien enclosure into their lives: it was not my home as I had obviously come from elsewhere, from far away. But in this limbo there was for us both the possibility of contact that was a revelation to me and often ,I could tell, a moving experience for the subjects themselves, who without words-by only their stance and their concentration-were able to say much that spanned the gulf between our different worlds”

~ Irving Penn

I still remember the day I first bought a copy of Irving Penn’s amazing book “Worlds in a Small Room” so many years ago in London at Foyle’s Bookstore. It literally transported me to places I could have only dreamed of visiting. It still has that same effect today, a testimony to Penn’s unique craft and range of interests.

Penn was an inveterate traveller with an insatiable curiosity about life and people which sustained him for 92 years. He set up his ambulant studio for this image in the town square of Guelmin, southern city in Morocco. Guelmin was home to an ancient camel market and known as the “Gateway to the Desert" where he invited these children to pose.

His empathy just shines through.

“I told my father when visiting “The Family of Man” exhibition with him at the Helsinki Art Hall in Winter 1959-60, I said to him that I know what I want to do in my life, to become a photographer”

~ Pentti Sammallahti

I think two significant events happened in the 20th Century that inspired many people to become seriously interested in photography. One was Steichen’s ground breaking exhibition “The Family of Man”. We must thank Pentti’s sensitive father for bringing his son to visit the exhibition. The second event was the publication of Henri Cartier Bresson’s seminal book “The Decisive Moment”, still the greatest photo book ever published.

The irony here is that I first became aware of Pentti’s work when Henri included this image in the first exhibition at his new Fondation Cartier Bresson, which opened with the exhibition “My Hundred Favorite Photographs". In 2003 a year before Henri passed away. 

Thank you Henri, Thank you Pentti . Two of my all time favorite people.

"Even though fixed in time, a photograph evokes as much feeling as that which comes from music or dance. Whatever the mode, from the snapshot to the decisive moment to multi media montage - the intent and purpose of photography is to render in visual terms feelings and experiences that often elude the ability of words to describe. In any case the eyes have it and the imagination will always soar further than was expected.”

~ Ralph Gibson

A couple embrace at the Carrousel du Louvre in Paris. Couples embrace everywhere, but this observed embrace has a special power and force unlike many others one sees. Why is that?
It has to be that that Ralph is a storyteller with an emotional sensitivity to everything around him and the skill and experience and great talent to fulfill it.

“Robert Frank and I worked together and if the word “influence” is to be used we influenced each other. We influenced each other without any tension, with total acceptance. We never spoke about the images. We never criticized each other. We influenced each other without jealousy. What other word can I use? Without resentment. That’s Robert.”

~ Louis Faurer

Louis, a close friend and colleague of Robert Frank, had the same penetrating eye and intelligence in showing us the veneer that people often project especially in public on the street.

Central casting could never deliver a face like this to play Daddy Warbucks better than this man who Louis observed in all his pomposity.

“I went to work with a vengeance——directed as much against photography which I was discovering as the city I was rediscovering. My secret weapon was a peculiar double vision half native, half foreigner. The pictures I took for the diary book were my first “real” photographs. In Paris I had started to see what I could do with a camera but this time I had a bona fide project.”

~ William Klein

William returned to NY after his initial sojourn in Paris to the city of his birth with a vengeance.

His passion, energy and no rules attitude created one of the most important bodies of work, in that most unique of cities, that the medium has ever seen.

“The session took place on May 25,1955 in the old fashioned atmosphere of a suburban house, well lit by daylight.
I had stretched a tablecloth across the window, up to a few inches above the top of the frame. Direct sunlight hit the top of her head, the left shoulder, part of the back of the chair, and part of the white bedspread, which is visible in the bottom right corner. It is the reflection of this last ray of sun on the bedspread that faintly lights the small of the model’s back as well as the bottom of the armchair. Her left side and thighs are illuminated by the sun filtering through the tablecloth, on which the projected shadow of the window railing can be seen. 
Difficult print: detail is required in the tablecloth curtain and the bottom third of the negative must not be drowned in darkness.”

~ Willy Ronis

However many difficult printing challenges this particular negative presented themselves to Willy he certainly overcame them to produce one of the most beautiful and original nudes in 20th Century Photography.

Tasteful and elegant it has all the power of a great Old Master Dutch Master Painting.

“It’s important to have your own visual signature, something that enables the viewer to instantly know that this is the work of a specific photographer. It’s not about style, it’s the way you put an image together. It’s our own personal way of perceiving our own individual reality.
Photography is an unusually amorphous medium in that all you really are doing is releasing the shutter. However the structure of the medium rests within the intelligence of the eye.”

~ Ralph Gibson

I guess if you or I had been walking down a street in Paris in 1974 which perhaps we were, we would have seen many classic Citroen cars but I doubt we would have come up with an image as elegant as this one.

That is because we are not great photographers in the way Ralph is. He for sure has a distinct visual style and the intelligence to go with it. I could stare at this image for hours and never lose interest.

“Fashion came into my life by accident. Alexander Liberman had seen an exhibition that I had and he said “I like what you are doing. Why don’t you come and talk to me at Vogue and we’ll see what we can do together.”

~ William Klein

Isn’t life often like that? A chance encounter can change one’s fortunes and path. Meeting the great art director for Condé Nast was certainly a life changing event for Bill which resulted in many of the genre’s greatest images.

There is a good reason why Bill chose this particular image to place on the cover of his book “In and Out of Fashion”. It has everything one could want in a fashion shot. Pure beauty mixed with allure and seduction.

“New York enchanted and amazed me. Everywhere a new discovery awaited me. I have an intense desire to record life as I see it, as I feel it. As long as I’m amazed and astonished, as long as I feel that events, messages, expressions and movements are all shot through with the miraculous, I’ll feel filled with the certainty I need to keep going."

~ Louis Faurer

Louis was filled with restless energy to explore all varieties of urban life which he brought to life with his skilled use of techniques such as blur, green, reflections, slow film speed, low lighting. He was as exacting in the darkroom and was a tireless perfectionist when it came to cropping and printing his work.

This image could well be a still from a Scorsese movie. His work explored the great variety of the city’s human faces as well as many of his more well known contempories.

“Free man, you will always cherish the sea” (Charles Baudelaire)
Lovers you will always cherish calm waters - my modest addition.
Photographing couples on the banks of the Seine in springtime - 
what a cliche!
But why deprive yourself of the pleasure?
Every time I encounter a pair of lovers, my camera smiles: let it do it’s job. Here the couple is double - the tree slanting through the image unites rather than divides.”

~ Willy Ronis

In the hands of a master a commonplace occurrence, lovers on the Banks of the Seine becomes something truly special and engaging. It’s the structure of the image with the tree separating the two pairs of lovers that more than doubles its impact and emotion.

“Being in New York, I was most impressed with the loneliness and latent show of emotions in the subways and cafeterias.
They weren’t pictures of people. They were pictures of the way I felt.”

~ Ted Croner

Ted was one of the celebrated Alexey Brodovitch’s most talented students in his famous teaching “lab”. He found his voice on the streets of New York exploring its urban rhythm and human nuances. This was one of his breakthrough images set against the marquee of one of the most powerful and gritty films of the 1940’s

“Human beings are an inexhaustible source of wisdom.”

~ Louis Stettner

Louis was a man of enormous compassion and empathy. There is almost something literary about many of his great images.

Here in this rare image of his he shows us his insight into ordinary peoples' lives. There is no condescension, just respect and understanding of one ordinary waitress’s life post-war trying to keep it all together with dignity.

“In this project I have no photographs of deforestation. I have no photographs of the fires. I have only photographs of the alive Amazonia, the real Amazonia."

~ Sebastião Salgado

Wherever Sebastiao’s new traveling Museum Exhibition “Amazonia” has been exhibited, crowds have been amazed by the power and the beauty it exudes. The humanity of the indigenous tribes is at the core of it but they too are vulnerable as their way of life just like ours are severely impacted by the new weather patterns.

As Salgado cautions us,  
“Climate change has changed the system of rain. The droughts are longer. It is much hotter. The system of agriculture they’ve had is completely transformed.”

This project is a call to action for all of us who are concerned for the future.

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

“The painter Daniel Pipard, a child of Menilmontant, had introduced me to a young couple from there whom I photographed in November 1947."

~ Willy Ronis

Belleville and Menilmontant are in an area that was long ignored by Parisians until Willy really discovered it and put it on the map in 1947.

His first great great book was the result of strolls through the narrow streets of the then largely working class Eastern Paris district.

I was fortunate enough to see a wonderful exhibition of all his images from this time in a beautiful municipal art center there, confirming his status as one of the most important French humanist photographers.

“Louis Faurer, a newcomer in the field of documentary reporting, is a lyricist with a camera, a seeker and finder of magic in some of the highways and byways of life.”

~ Edward Steichen 1948

The great Edward Steichen wrote these accurate words about Faurer on the occasion of Steichen’s first large survey exhibition of photography at the Museum of Modern Art which included Faurer.

I always sensed that Faurer was somewhat of a tortured romantic as is evidenced by this haunting, longing image of a solitary woman in Times Square. What is her story? I’m sure Faurer never knew and neither will we but it doesn’t matter. It is still beautiful.

“To photograph truthfully and effectively is to see beneath the surfaces and to record the qualities of nature and humanity which live or are latent in all things.”

~ Ansel Adams

On the surface this might seem an image just of some twisted wood, but in the hands of a master it becomes something else, a deep and profound spiritual experience that goes beyond its simple subject matter. I think this is one of Adam’s greatest images.

“The actual location did not make me want to preserve it for the future. The child in his stroller was the reason for this shot. 
He slept soundly.”

~ WIlly Ronis

A charming moment.

“My way of life, my very being is based on images capable of engraving themselves indelibly in our inner soul’s eye."

~ Louis Stettner

Louis spent more than 70 years photographing on and off in Times Square, New York. It was a constant source of inspiration for him. He would photograph at all times day and night in pursuit of the human comedy. Even when there are no people in his images as in this one of a nearby car park one can still sense the human stories going on with the cars’ absent owners.

A whole time era is evoked.

“Photography is always like a state of grace, like the appearance of something that I hadn’t foreseen, that surprises me.
If I only did what I had in mind, there would be no emotion. It would be like keeping one’s eyes shut rather than open, like theorizing rather than seeing."

~ Sarah Moon

Sarah always seems to be in a state of grace when she is working and also when she is not working, just talking and reflecting.

Just having a cup of tea with her in her home in Paris is almost a transcendental experience.
You realize you are in the presence of someone quite special whose sensitivity and vision is truly unique. How else can you explain the pure poetry and emotion within her images?

“My intense desire is to record life as I see it.”

~ Louis Faurer

“The city is totally Faurer’s natural habitat. He can be home, at one with people on its streets, in its rooms. However serene or edgy his encounters, one senses Faurer……as being the same as the people in his photographs. And since these people are extremely varied, it’s a transcendent vision that allows the photographer to be so many “others.”"

~ Walter Hopps cited p. 56 in “Louis Faurer "by Anne Wilkes Tucker Merrell Publishers Ltd.

Louis Faurer has to be one of the most under appreciated, elegant and poetic street photographers of the 20th Century.

His images capture the most magical and sometimes lonely moments most of us feel at various times of the daily human urban drama.

“Music chose me but photography needed me.
The Gods of music on the mountain on the Right were called upon by the mountain of photography as art on the Left.
They said “We are so young and know so little can you please give us something from your realm, somebody to come to invest our photography with the power of music?”. So I became a photographer. The Gods of music sent me over. In both cases I was chosen by music in order to put it into photography.”

~ Paul Caponigro

Paul, like Ansel Adams, started his career immersed in performing the piano. Then they both moved over into the world of photography. Both arenas required an intense focus and dedication, continued practice and immense passion and sacrifice. This is evident in the sublime work they both created.

Fellow travelers. We are so fortunate to be the recipients of their immense talents.

“March 15,1954.
Early in the morning I was driving through the Lorraine countryside toward the iron and steel plant in Richemont where work beckoned me. I overtook these kids and then, further on, I braked to let them overtake me. I silently opened my door and catching up with them stealthily I released the shutter.”

~ Willy Ronis

Willy always told me that this image reminded him of three little penguins separated from their family.

“I understood that synergistic dance between photographer and object- “muse” if you will, “model” whatever you call us.
It’s that client language of communication, like being psychic with each other.”

~ Carmen Dell“Orefice

“You know it is a long creative life and if you do the same thing every day it doesn’t work. You don’t become creative anymore”

~ Lillian Bassman

Carmen is now 90 years old, still beautiful and still working. She has been modeling since she was 15 years old. She was one of Lillian’s most favorite models and together they created many images that have now become “classics” of the genre.

“There is no substitute for the power that a straight photograph can give you and no better instrument than a camera on a tripod. All the places we’ve photographed together and been together we’ve used a 4x5 almost to exclusion because your stillness is to be celebrated. To take that sense of space in your expression and your body language is mystical. It’s a real thrill to look at the back of this camera and see the picture you’re going to make."

~ Kurt Markus

“I was never one of those models who would be at all insulted if I had to be photographed from the back. Besides I can make whatever face I want.”

~ Christy Turlington

The great photographer Kurt Markus and the great supermodel Christy Turlington have collaborated for over 25 years now and together have created an extraordinary body of work that transcends mere “fashion” work. Without any conscious desire to create “art” that is what they have indeed accomplished.

As with this specific image even though we do not even see her face the image is just supremely beautiful and moving.

“A great designer does not seek acceptance. He challenges popularity, and by the force his convictions renders popular in the end what the public hates at first sight.”

~ Charles James 

“I’ve never not worked. I’m 93 years old and I have been working since I was 15.”

~ Lillian Bassman

During the many years I collaborated with Lillian she was always working, always trying something new and pushing the envelope. She was working till the very last moment she left us at 95 years old. She was a creative force of nature.

This is the quintessence of a great 1950’s fashion shot. One of the greatest fashion photographers ever, one of the greatest designers ever, Charles James and one of the great fashion models of the era Sunny Harnett.

As George Gershwin wrote in ”I got Rhythm“
“Who could ask for anything more?”

“Photography must not try to be persuasive. It cannot change the world but it can show the world especially when it is changing.”

~ Marc Riboud

Marc was born in France but he belonged to the world. He had that special ingredient in his make up, the one all the great photojournalists had, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, David Seymour, W. Eugene Smith, Don McCullin, Sebastiao Salgado had/have, a restless eye in perpetual motion.

This is one of his greatest images. Beautiful bodies and gestures and light show the common humanity of a group of Indians drying their dhotis after bathing in the Ganges.

It’s the rhythm of life.

“I was not born to ranching. I was born a day dreamer and I know of no slot for one of those on any ranch.
But the awful truth is that I love all of cowboying even when everything has gone wrong and it’s not looking to get any better.”

~ Kurt Markus

No one has captured the timelessness and has explored the rugged yet romantic spirit of the cowboy better than Kurt has. He places you right there in the landscape and with the people who have chosen to live in this unique way.

A man of quiet determination who considers himself so fortunate to have been given a gift and to have found photography and made his life in it. And I feel fortunate too to have found the beauty and power of his work.

He is in a class of his own.

"The most luxurious possession, the richest treasure anybody has is his personal dignity.”

~ Jackie Robinson

“I didn’t know anything about shooting baseball. I planted myself between photographers from the New York Times and the Daily News and when they pointed their cameras at something I pointed mine too.”

~ Ralph Morse

I think Mr. Morse is being unduly modest here otherwise he wouldn’t have created probally the greatest baseball shot ever. Hoping to distract Yankee catcher Yogi Berra and disrupt the pitcher, Bob Turvey, Jackie Robinson dances off of third base during the 1955 World Series at Ebbets Field.
Jackie Robinson was UCLA's first ever varsity athlete in 4, yes 4 sports - baseball, basketball, football and track. Even though he started his major league career relatively late in life, at 28 years old, he brought an electrifying combination of hard discipline and explosive talent to the game that thrilled fans, awed his teammates and consistently rattled his opponents. 

His fame and legend were hard earned against so many odds. A heroic figure for sure.

“You don’t make a photograph just with a camera. You bring to the act of photographing all the pictures you have seen, the books you have read, the music you have heard, the people you have loved.”

~ Ansel Adams

Of course Ansel is so right. He poured his heart and soul into everything he did and it shows.
That is why his work is so outstanding and special. He was completely in the moment and his dedication to his craft and his work ethic are pretty much unparalleled in the history the medium.

“Working with Horst was a Master Class in Living”

~ Carmen Dell’refice. Model

“Horst was in my opinion one of the great photographers of his time. He was a perfectionist in every sense of the word. There is nothing accidental in his work - everyone, every shadow, every movement enhances what he finds in front of his camera and the results speak handsomely for the success of his approach. His ethos of simplicity and the very way in which he constructed his images - as a form of photographic sculpture has always been an inspiration to me. But most of all everything about Horst resonates with true style and that to my mind is irresistible.”

~ Tom Ford

Carmen Dell’refice started modelling at the age of 15 years old for Vogue and is still vey much demand at the age of 90 years old!

In this, one of Horst’s most elegant and sought after images, a woman looks at the camera sideways with her head in a white turban and resting on a sheet covered headrest. Two hands are massaging her head. In order to shoot this picture Horst gently told Carmen to just pretend she was being groomed for a major event that evening.

I feel relaxed just looking at it.

“The women who intrigued me as models had the most beautiful necks and the most responsive hand movements. At one point I found El Greco and that elongated look became my way of seeing.”

~ Lillian Bassman

Mentored by Alexey Brodovitch at Harper’s Bazaar who promoted her to art director at Junior Bazaar she became a celebrated photographer in her own right along with her contemporaries and friends Irving Penn and Richard Avedon. Creating exquisite black and white portraits of graceful models through experiments in the darkroom, cropping, toning, bleaching and employing the use of gauzes and tissues to manipulate images by hand until they took on the look of mysterious fashion charcoal dreams.

“There is no such thing as perfection, there are only standards. And after you have set a standard, you learn that it was not high enough. You want to surpass it.”

~ Jascha Heifetz 

“Only moments before this photograph was taken, his household staff accustomed to the violinist guarding his hands, looked on in shock and amazement as Heifetz helped me move a piano.”

~ Yousuf Karsh

During these COVID times I have taken great comfort in listening to classical violin music.
There was no greater violinist than the amazing Russian born Jasha Heifetz and no greater portrait photographer than Yousuf Karsh. This is not just a portrait of the Master’s hands. It is a total evocation of his whole being.

You can almost hear the music.

“The Hebrides, Finland, Italy, Russia, Wales, Nepal……like a nomad, Pentti Sammallahti has traveled the world throughout the decades, finding everywhere the meaning-laden vistas that show how, in chance moments, symmetry and beauty are created. An ability to see form where one wouldn’t think it could be found. A consoling search for a unified, holistic sense of purpose that can only arise when you don’t look for it. And which shows that photography is one of the most translatable languages there are.”

~ Marie Lunquist
Introduction to “Me Kaksi"

It is always a special occasion when we are blessed to receive a new book from Pentti Sammallahti. We have just received his new book “Me Kaksi” which means “We Two”. The book celebrates the chance encounter, the strange closeness and the presence in the world of two beings.

The idea of the duo, the couple of all kinds of accomplices appears repeatedly in his work taken over the last 50 plus years. Whether it is lovers, children, passers-by, travelers, neighbours but also a man and his dog, or two birds, these images tell of attachment, tenderness, the universality of the emotional bond of being in the world together.

"A photograph gives us the naked truth which has to be clothed by the imagination.”

~ Frank Meadow Sutcliffe

Mr. Sutcliffe was born in the town of Leeds, England a mere 14 years after the birth of photography. He took up photography in 1871. From 1872 to 1873 he photographed the castles and abbeys of Yorkshire for Francis Frith, a pioneer photographer of his time. He then set up on his own opening a studio in Whitby in North Yorkshire, England and developed a great affection and respect for the town and its people which shows through his work.

He became more and more respected and was a founding member of The Linked Ring, a group of pictorialist photographers based in London in 1892. This is one of his greatest photographs and so rare to find in such perfect condition for a print that is over 130 years old.

A group of young boys all standing in a row with their backs to the camera wearing hand me down clothes and leaning over a wall to look down at something. One wonders what it is they are all looking at that is holding their attention. Well that’s the mystery and power of photography.

“Taking pictures is like savoring life at 125th of a second…….it is the instinct of the instant and the instant of the instinct."

~ Marc Riboud

Marc had incurable wanderlust. He had a sixth sense of where great stories were to be found in the world. He was one of the first Western photographers allowed into China after the country’s Cultural Revolution in 1957.

He found himself inside an antique store in Beijing and was presented with this view.
It is one of the great compositions in the history of photography. So many layers of storing-telling and shapes in one frame with an enduring power.

“I intend to live forever or die trying.”

~ Groucho Marx

Ted Allan got his start in his teens taking pictures of aspiring actors in a dime store on Hollywood Boulevard and went on to build a reputation in the entertainment industry that earned him the nickname “Rembrandt” at MGM.

“A Day at The Races” is one of my favorite Marx Brothers movies. Just the name of the character Groucho played in the film, Dr. Hugo Z. Hackenbush puts a smile on my face. During the production of the film, Irving Thalberg who had brought the Marx Bros to MGM suddenly died in Sept 1936 of pneumonia at the young age of 37 years old. Thalberg’s death left the Marx Bros without a champion at MGM and the studio never gave the same level of care and attention to the team they had received under Thalberg.

“Let us not emphasize all on which we differ but all we have in common. Let us consider not what we fear separately but what we share together.” 

~ John Fitzgerald Kennedy

“The smoke-filled room, attended by city bosses and cigar chomping “pols” is now a symbol of the past. But during the 1960 campaign, “Bosses” were still enormously important and influential, and they had to be courted. Men such as Mayor Dailey of Chicago, David Lawrence of Pennsylvania and Carmine DeSapio or Adam Clayton Powell of New York, still controlled large chunks of votes, some real and some “fictional”, but votes that would be counted come Election Day.

Democrat’s and Republicans alike were guilty of bossism though Democrats seemed to have the edge. Here at a hastily called Chicago airport stopover, Kennedy addresses a group of politicians crowded into a small conference room.”
~ Jacques Lowe

This could almost be a still from a Coppola or Scorsese movie. Intense real drama going on that couldn’t even be scripted.

“To the complaint “”There are no people in these photographs!” 
I respond : “There are always two people: The photographer and the viewer”

~ Ansel Adams

I recently came across the beautiful image of a simple moth on a tree stump and was immediately captivated by it. So simple but so haunting and just exquisite and magical in its presentation of everyday natural things.

“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched.
They must be felt with the heart.”

~ Helen Keller 1880-1948

Helen Keller was an American author, disability rights advocate, political activist and lecturer.
Here are Karsh’s moving words about this session which resonate even more so today,

“On first looking into her blind but seeing eyes, I said to myself of this woman who had no sight or hearing since the age of three “Her light comes from within”.
She placed her marvelously sensitive fingers on my face when we met.This was for me, an emotional experience. I sensed she already knew me.
Her faithful companion, Polly Thompson, dialed Braille into her palm. Helen Keller’s kindness and understanding, her alert mind, awed me. I told her this was not the first time we had met or I know her through her writing. Amongst the earliest articles I attempted to read while learning English was her “How to appreciate the Beauty of Sunset”. “Now having met you in person” I said “I will no longer think of you in terms of sunset but of sunrise”.
She quickly replied, “How I wish that mankind would take the sunrise for their slogan and leave the shadows of sunset behind them”.

“If you bungle raising your children, I don’t think whatever else you do matters very much.”

~ Jackie Kennedy

Jackie cherished time alone with her baby daughter. Here she holds Caroline in the nursery of the 3307 N Street home. Jackie was the very essence of photogenic during the Camelot years even when shot from behind by Jacques’s skilled eye.

“A wise girl knows her limits, a smart girl knows that she has none.”

~ Marilyn Monroe

“Perhaps the world’s second worst crime is boredom: the first is being a bore.”

~ Cecil Beaton

Cecil was never boring. His volatile creative mind was never turned off. Always stretching into new territories, new challenges. He had only one session with Marilyn Monroe which took place at the Ambassador Hotel in New York in February 1956. The actress turned up to his Suite 90 minutes late and in his diary Beaton admitted that he was “startled then disarmed by her lack of inhibition”.

The photographer compared the actress to “an overexcited child asked downstairs after tea” and added “The initial shyness over, excitement has now got the better of her. She romps, she squeals with delight, she leaps onto the sofa. She puts a flower stem in her mouth, puffing on a diary as though it were a cigarette. It is an artless, impromptu, high spirited, infectiously gay performance”.

Marilyn shot to fame playing dumb yet witty blondes in films including “Some Like it Hot”, “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” and “The Seven Year Itch”. And Beaton acknowledged that while it was “press agentry or manufactured illusion” that had helped her find success, it was “her own weird genius that had sustained her flight”.

He wrote “The real marvel lies in the paradox-somehow we know that the extraordinary performance is pure charade -the little girl’s caricature of Mae West. There is an unworldly, a winsome naiveté about the child’s eyes that quick as a flash, will screw up into a pair of sexy, smoldering slits and give you a signature “come hither” look.

One of the great Monroe photos for sure.

“For me photography is not an intellectual process. It is a visual one. Whether we like it or not, we are involved in a sensual business.“

~ Marc Riboud

It was a special day for me in Paris some years back when I was preparing an exhibition for Marc when I discovered this image looking through his archives. I love soccer and I had never seen this image before. In fact I had seen very few images that capture the spirit and atmosphere of the game taken by any really important photographers. But this certainly was a Eureka moment.

Even if you are not an Arsenal fan and prefer Manchester United, or Spurs or Liverpool no one can deny the beauty of this one with its brilliant lines and composition. Very hard not to get caught up in the excitement of the game right?

“I am always doing that which I cannot do in order that I may learn how to do it.”

~ Pablo Picasso 1881-1973

“The Maestro’s villa was a photographer’s nightmare with his boisterous children bicycling through vast rooms already crowded with canvasses. I eagerly accepted Picasso’s alternative suggestion to meet later in Vallauris at his ceramic gallery.
“He will never be here” the gallery owner commented when my assistant and two hundred pounds of equipment arrived.
“He says the same thing to every photographer”
To everyone’s amazement , the old “lion” not only kept his photographic appointment with me but was prompt and wore a new shirt. He could partially view himself in my large format lens and intuitively moved to complete the composition.”

~ Yousuf Karsh

Of course Picasso was one of the most influential artist’s of the 20th Century and was much photographed. But this surely is one of the most insightful and intelligent of all the images we have of him.

A perfect rendezvous of two giants in their own field.

“I don’t think photography has anything remotely to do with the brain. It has to do with eye appeal.”

~ Horst P. Horst

Horst first apprenticed with Le Corbusier in Paris and one of his many “take aways” from that experience was how to architecturally construct a picture plane. He was a master of how light falls on an object and how to balance it with shadow.

This is one of my favorite all time Horst images. A woman wearing white gloves holding a round object. Is she Eve tempting Adam on his birthday with an apple? The crumpled tissue paper is blocking her face and body from view. It all just adds to the elegance and mystery of this supremely beautiful image.

Happy Birthday to any of our readers if this is your special day.

“When I photograph I distill things down to their essence.
I concentrate on what it is in the viewfinder that excites me and I try to eliminate all the distraction.”

~ Rod Dresser

Rod enjoyed, like so many other great photographers, a deep friendship and mentorship with Ansel Adams who was generous with his time and knowledge. He used this gift to develop his own distinct vision which is exemplified here. 

On the surface it seems simple but has a profound power to it due to the physical beauty of the print. And the mood it radiates.

“A Man does what he must-in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures-and that is the basis of all human morality.”

~ John Fitzgerald Kennedy


“On August I st 1943, at 2.30am. PT boat 109, commanded by Lieutenant JFK was sliced in half and sunk by a Japanese destroyer. Kennedy, already suffering from a bad back was slammed to the floor, which severely injured his spine. In spite of his injury, Kennedy located 12 survivors. Next morning with Kennedy firmly grasping his wounded engineer’s life belt between his teeth, the two swam to safety at a nearby island. Ever since then, the future President suffered from severe back pain and the rocking chair became an essential comfort to him.”

~ Jacques Lowe

This chair was first recommended by his physician, Dr. Janet Trewell, in 1955. He bought this sturdy Appalachian oak rocking chair from P&P Chair Company and it was his constant companion throughout his short life.

“I set out in search of images to capture by wandering and observing, following my instincts. I love surprises in life as in photography.”

~ Marc Riboud

In 1955 Marc bought an old Land Rover to travel from Paris to Calcutta with stops in Instanbul and Afghanistan. Like many inveterate travelers before him he fell deeply under the spell of India and created a great body of work there.

On the surface this looks like a very simple image but because of Marc’s genius it becomes something else. An exotic meditation on life in a mystical land.

“Never wait till tomorrow. What if tomorrow never comes?”

~ Elvis Presley

The train certainly left the station for Elvis and Alfred was there for the momentous ride in the beginning for this little known 21 year old. Elvis was like an Earthquake erupting!

“I worked 12-15 hours a day. I couldn’t stop myself with the brilliant constant light. When you have a sunset in Europe it is maybe half an hour or an hour. Here we had five or six hours.”

~ Sebastião Salgado

In his epic project “Genesis” Sebastião set out to capture Antarctica’s breathtaking beauty and he succeeded I think beyond even his own high expectations. Deception Island with its concealed hot springs is favored by Chinstrap Penguins.

This is the perfect image to place in a child’s bedroom. When my younger daughter was very young and had problems sleeping she used to wake up constantly. When this happened I advised her to start counting the penguins in this photograph which she diligently did and then fell back miraculously to sleep. Photography as a savior as well as an object of power and beauty!

“I often painted fragments of things because it seemed to make my statement as well as or better than the whole could.”

~ Georgia O’Keeffe 

“Often the tension that exists between the pictorial content of a photograph and its record of reality is the picture’s true beauty.“

~ John Loengard

Georgia O’Keeffe first traveled to New Mexico in 1929 and moved there permanently in 1949 following the death of her husband Alfred Stieglitz. Although she achieved early success as a modernist painter living the East, the landscape of the desert Southwest gave O’Keeffe her greatest inspiration. She painted familiar subjects such as flowers, adobe buildings and objects found on her walks around her remote home.  

In 1966, Life Magazine photographer, John Loegard, was asked to document the daily life of Georgia O’Keeffe at her Ghost Ranch home near Abiquiu where she produced much of her iconic work.

John’s elegant black and white images are some of the best images ever taken of her. He captured the grand, solitary woman in the desert with great sensitivity and insight and this beautiful photograph graced the cover of the March 1st 1968 issue of Life Magazine.

“I’m more interested in what’s beautiful in the world than what’s disastrous, perhaps because I came from a disastrous country when I was young.”

~ Horst P. Horst

Horst created images that transcend fashion and time. He was a master of light, composition and atmosphere. He created such worlds of sensual sophistication over an extraordinary sixty year plus career. His magical images graced the pages of “Vogue” and “House and Garden”.

He ranks alongside Irving Penn and Richard Avedon and Lillian Bassman as one of the preeminent fashion and portrait photographers of the 20th Century.

What never ceases to amaze me is that he took this image at the age of 81 years old, still as forceful and vibrant as he was in the 1930’s.

He never lost his magic touch.

“Children are the world’s most valuable resource and its best hope for the future.”

~ John Fitzgerald Kennedy

"Jackie, Caroline and Jack pause in the doorway of their Georgetown home before the senator heads off to his office on Capitol Hill. This is 1959, before the rush of the presidential campaign made such peaceful moments rare. Later, from this same doorway, President-elect Kennedy would announce his cabinet appointments to journalists clustered outside on the snowy street.”
~Jacques Lowe

Not an ordinary goodbye on the way to a normal day at the office that most families experience.
An intimate look by a sensitive photographer of the other “life” of a young politician destined for history.

“In Wildness is the preservation of the World.”

~ Henry David Thoreau

“Of all the animals I have seen, Penguins are the closest to Humans.”

~ Sebastião Salgado

Our friend Sebastião dedicated close to 10 years to document the pristine landscape that still exists in the world in his epic project “Genesis” showing us what the planet was like at the beginning of time. It is his love letter to the Earth and his warning to us of the importance of preserving it. This is one of the truly magnificent and joyful images from that project.

There are more than 12 million Chinstraps (named for the thin black line under their chins) in the Antarctic region where also 90% of the planet’s ice is to be found. The Penguins come here to breed and can dive in Antarctic waters to depths of up to 230 feet.

Of course we see that each penguin has its own distinct personality just as we humans do. 
Which one are you? The daredevil, gutsy one at the head of the line who knows no fear? Or the one turning back thinking maybe not quite yet. Let me think about this a bit more.

Enjoy.

“There’s no job too immense when you got confidence.”

~ Elvis Presley

Elvis sure had confidence. And was beyond cool.

I just love the ambience of this image and the Coke bottle is such a wonderful finishing touch.

Alfred established such a unique rapport with the burgeoning superstar.

"The best thing to hold onto in life is each other.”

~ Audrey Hepburn

“My Uncle Max invited me into the darkroom to watch him print. I stood on a little box so I could see into the tray. I saw him put a piece of paper in what I thought was water and all of a sudden this magic thing happened-a beautiful image began to appear. That experience stuck with me for a long time.”

~ Sid Avery

We have to thank Sid’s Uncle Max for getting his nephew interested in the magic of images.
Sid Avery enjoyed a long and fruitful life with a specialty of making often elusive and distant celebrities completely normal just like us.

This was an era of the power and influence of the Hollywood Studio system that dominated the world of entertainment way before “streaming” was a glimmer in Jeff Bezos's or Tim Cooks’s eye.

They just don’t make them like Audrey Hepburn anymore right?

“Growing up in a situation close to the earth especially a solitary situation such as mine, gives one a meditative nature and a tendency to contemplative thought processes which are most appropriate for photography.” 

~ Don Worth, Close to Infinity

Don Worth admired nature with a close eye, literally. Consistently using a tight shot to capture beautiful fauna. His images are striking and almost geometric. Here in Southern California, November is the first month that really feels like “fall”. We may not have the same fall colour show as the eastern seaboard but our desert succulents are right at home year round. However this Worth image will stay thriving whatever the weather and even if you may have a slight tendency to forget to water.

"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

There’s something incredible about the way a photograph can pick out an instant of an experience and almost cauterize it. The shutter drops, the moment is clean, sharp, and permanent. With the shutter speed set perfectly just to capture the chaos of a flock of birds, they are now transfixed. Dotting a negative or silver gelatin print, these figments of birds are imprisoned in the boundaries of the composition. The noise of this very real moment now only a memory guarded by the artist, Flor Garduño. Garduño has a natural way of bringing the immensity of such mythic moments to the boundaries of the cameras lens. 

Always quite magical.

“The camera is an unsophisticated mechanical instrument which, like a mirror, reflects passively without a conscience. The artist must supply the conscience.” 

~ Ralph Eugene Meatyard

Ralph Eugene Meatyard, is a master of supplying conscience. His images wrap the viewer up in a haunting consideration of mortality, relationships, and romantic surrealism. The imagery is timeless in nature, and always wholly symbolic of his personal relationships with his family. Meatyard often photographed his own children. However he plays with the nature of the theatre as he casts other children as gestures or figments of his own children. In this way the echo of their own intimacy continues.

"I tried to convey the typical atmosphere of French hotel rooms. There were so many impressions: the poor-looking furniture in a cheap hotel, the 'Amors' embroidered on the curtains. And I was in love with the girl, the girl who is my wife. I think a series of photographs should be compared with a novel or even a poem rather than a painting: let us tell something!"

~ René Groebli

What can I say about René’s beautiful visual love letter to his then newly-wed wife, Rita, that hasn’t been said already by its inclusion in John Szarkowski’s The Photographer’s Eye exhibition at MoMA in 1966. I think that anyone that has ever been in love can find deep and profound beauty in this series of images. 

René was married to Rita for 62 years until her passing in 2013 but she will forever live on in these timeless captures of a young married couple on honeymoon. So innocuous and yet so powerful. 

Bravo René!

"Pressing the shutter has remained a moment of joyful recognition, comparable to the delight of a child balancing on tiptoe and suddenly, with a small cry of delight, stretching out a hand toward a desired object." 

~ Inge Morath

Even for Magnum Photographer, Inge Morath, Hollywood is a small world. Inge Morath photographs her future husband Arthur Miller’s, second wife Marilyn Monroe on set with Clark Gable. Oh and by the way, the script is by Arthur Miller as well, and was supposed to be a “valentine” to his then wife, Marilyn. A story about wild horses, cowboys, and an aviator “Misfits” competes with old Hollywood itself for drama. As it happened, “Misfits” turned out to be the final film of both actors pictured in Morath’s photograph. Gable died just 10 days after filming finished and Monroe lived on for another year and a half.

"I have always felt that I have been standing in the middle ground between two eras, with one eye on the 19th century and the other on the 21st ... all across America we have left abandoned, like carcasses after the feast, that which only yesterday was state-of-the-art invention.” 

~ David Plowden

David Plowden turns his eye on the Thunderbird. Looking back at the 1960’s, this car is synonymous with America. The Thunderbird was a manifestation of America’s love of life, technology and style. A powerful machine that embraced design and intrigued generations. Plowden knowingly captures a street scene, whose reign in 1963 would inevitably end. In a world that now races to face climate change and a shift to electric cars, this street scene is clearly of a different time and sensibility.

“Each picture... is a small legend about beauty, sex, wonder, and women’s intimate lives.” 

~ Flor Garduño

Revealing or not. Intimate or guarded. Voyeur or in one's confidences. You can approach this image in a multitude of ways attempting to understand a lesson about women, sex or beauty. I found this particular quote of Flor’s on her work connects to this photograph wonderfully. Each image is a “legend”. Retold countless of times and with numerous variations. This image of the nude and cacti does not require such meticulous examination to be understood. Rather it must be wholly celebrated for its meaning to you, the viewer, in this moment. Forms revealed in beautiful light.

“Once I see an animal I want to photograph, I try to ignore it then I run after it which usually gains a response; sometimes I just stare at it and see what happens. Their reactions are different; sometimes they are curious about the camera and sometimes they get scared by the noise of the shutter.” 

~ Giacomo Brunelli

Rodeos, horse girls, dressage, the Kentucky Derby, a knight on a white horse, partner to the cowboys, and our trusty steed. What is it about horses that capture our attention so vividly? Perhaps it’s the wildness, unpredictable in nature even after domestication in the year 3500 BC. Whatever the reason they are majestic creatures. Horses hold their own sense of dignity. As subject matter, their essence has captivated the attention of photographers for decades, and yet Giacomo Brunelli finds a way to capture this “horse bum” completely afresh and with a humorous perspective.

"I work in several different groups of pictures which act on and with each other - ranging from several abstracted manners to a form for the surreal. I have been called a preacher - but, in reality, I'm more generally philosophical. I have never made an abstracted photograph without content. An educated background in Zen influences all of my photographs." 

~ Ralph Eugene Meatyard

A great friend of the theologian Thomas Merton, and deeply influenced by the concept of “Zen”, Ralph Eugene Meatyards’ interest in the spiritual translated to his work. Perhaps a contemplation of our mortal existence, Meatyards’ premature death at 46 shadows his photographs today. His oeuvre was some of the most bewitching American southern gothic photographs, which cast his family, friends and state of Kentucky as its subjects. Perhaps less well known than other 20th century photographers, Ralph Eugene Meatyard is one of America’s photographic geniuses.

“A photographer doesn't just copy reality, but communicates to others what he or she experiences.” 

~ Walter Rosenblum

Photographers bring their own sense of a subject to their work, whether it is familiar, mythic, intimate, or majestic. Whatever that is, a horse will be surely know when you are photographing them. In Rosenblum’s company the animal looks at ease, with credit to the photographer. Like us horses are emotional, have strong family bonds, friendships and a keen adaptability. Photographed in cities, rural and wild spaces, the horse will always be one of the photographer’s muses.

“All I’ve ever wanted to do is take stills of people, or take documentaries about people, and try to express to an audience how somebody lives next door. You know what I mean? Just how similar we all are as individuals. And I feel the same way about cinema.”

~ Roger A. Deakins

Roger A. Deakins has spent most of his life behind the lens. That type of time spent looking, really looking has rewarded Roger with an incredible eye, and a body of creative work that spans visual art and cinema. Pondering his photographs, I am struck with how personal they are. Moments held that otherwise might have slipped by, familiar and fleeting. It is Roger’s thoughtfulness and cheeky humor that I hang on to after I have considered his newest book, “Byways”. His natural curiosity and interest in each space he explores with his camera is so clear. “Smoking Break”, is one of my personal favorites. In the window of a speeding train, a private moment is caught and yet delicately preserved. The casual gesture of touching hands retains great dignity. This balance is not an easy feat to achieve. And that is why Roger is so successful, camera in hand, not only does he see the moment, he knows how to phrase it.

“I can’t conceive of art without a social context … it’s not just what you as an individual want to express; it must be understandable by others.” 

~ Mariana Yampolsky

Mariana Yampolsky came to Mexico to study and never left. In her lifetime she worked not only as a photographer but also as a painter and graphic artist dedicated to social and political ideas of anti-fascism. Fully immersing herself in her adopted country, (eventually receiving Mexican citizenship) she documented the complexity of Mexican culture, including its landscapes, folk art, and poverty. Her images transform the ordinary and she was known for her traveling through rural Mexico extensively photographing. Traversing the terrain in her Volkswagen Beetle in the 1960’s when travel through rural Mexico was much more challenging than it is today Yampolsky crated over 66,000 photographs in her lifetime.

“I don’t speak emotionally about my pictures. That’s for other people to do. I will say that I love my photographs. That’s what keeps me going.” 

~ George Tice

George Tice was particularly noted for his printing skill, and also served as a master printer for Steichen as well as printing the portfolios of Frederick H. Evans and Edward Weston. Tice's body of work has continually focused on the American rural and suburban landscape. However this image is part of a vision of Yorkshire created as a result of a joint fellowship from the National Museum of Photography, Film & Television and Bradford and Ilkley Community College. An anthem in photographic form for a turn of the seasons, embracing grey clouds, reflection and perhaps inspiring a day with a Brontë novel, Juliet R.V. Barker authors the afterward of George Tice’s Yorkshire body of work, 

“George Tice’s Yorkshire is indeed a world of grey skies and stone walls, as his title proclaims. In almost every photograph, rural or urban, moorland or seaside, the landscape is sodden with rain and the skies are clouded and storm-laden. Somehow, this seems entirely appropriate for the prevailing mood of this collection. This is somber, dour portrayal of a country noted for those very characteristics; it is also a celebration of the spirit and drama of a bleak, sometimes forbidding and inhospitable countryside, which nevertheless inspires passion in its admirers. In their writings, the Brontë’s created an evocative and lasting memorial to this landscape; in his superb collection of photographs, George Tice has done likewise.” Juliet R.V. Barker (afterward to George Tice’s Stone Walls, Grey Skies; A vision of Yorkshire.

“I’m more interested in the non-decisive: the little nothings that may not be very important, apparently, but that are important, in life and in seeing with the camera.”

~ Bernard Plossu

This image by Bernard has always been one of my favorites from his series taken in Mexico where we see Bill Coleman sleeping on a couch next to Karina Schmidt’s legs while she was reading a book at one of the parties that Bill used to throw. There’s something so mesmerizing in this innocuous snapshot of two friends winding down at the end of the night. It’s the moment within the moment and Bernard is so brilliant at pulling back the veil of the ordinary and letting us glimpse the world through his eyes.

“Shoot what you see, not what you think. A photographer’s philosophy should be not to have one."

~ Manuel Alvarez Bravo

Manuel Alvarez Bravo consistently sidestepped questions about the interpretations of his images, suggesting that people ask his photographs, and not himself, what they mean. A pillar of the medium and one of Mexico’s most iconic photographers, Bravo’s work has always centered itself in Mexican culture.

Themes and motifs are unavoidable in his work. This image brings an almost sinister equine toy horse figure and “unlucky” horseshoe. This unlikely still life murmurs an echo of conquistadors, and colonialism in the form of centaur-like figures from an earlier time in Mexico. But perhaps Bravo has merrily singled out a loaded motif. Mexico’s history echos so clearly in his work, and Bravo had a knack for leading us, like a horse, to water.

"I want to get people to read stone, tree, so forth & so on through the construction of the picture, to lead them to these things exactly as if it were written out on a page. I think it can be done." 

~ Ralph Eugene Meatyard

Ralph Eugene Meatyard's photographs are an experience. Viewers must release expectation and slowly explore the composition. With expert handling of natural light, Meatyard draws the viewer to his photographs subjects, subtleties and shadowy corners. There is a balance to each of these images, the hint of a bedroom, a home, and brotherhood. Somewhere between a familial space and figure there is an unease of never knowing any image wholly that Meatyard eagerly wishes us to explore.

“What an artist is trying to do for people is bring them closer to something, because art is about sharing. You wouldn’t be an artist unless you wanted to share an experience, a thought.”

~ David Hockney

"The London Sunday Times sent me to LA to photograph the artist David Hockney. When I arrived at his house, nestled somewhere in the hills of Hollywood, the person who opened the door, welcomed me in, but put their finger to their mouth, meaning to be silent. As soon as I saw on the other side of the room there was David Hockney, he was sitting behind a grand piano, deep in thought, playing some classical tune. I just stood there like a lemon, not quite knowing what I should do. Eventually David lifted his head, acknowledging me. He then stood up and walked to me smiling. The piano kept on playing - it was his private joke. He was very nice and engaging, constantly talking to me about all his theories of perspective and all things relating to that subject. I was only half listening - as I was busy looking for a location to shoot him. He was very relaxed and jovial.

After I photographed him with his dogs (his request!) and alone with all his canvasses he said let’s go for a drive. As we got into his 1960’s convertible he looked at me very seriously and said “I failed my drivers test several times. They said I was not a natural driver”. We got into the car and drove up some steep windy roads. I spotted a location that looked good and we stopped. He then said to me he always liked this particular place. We got out of the car. I started to unpack my Hasselblad and tripod. David went across the street and had a pee, came back, stood exactly the way I told him to. The light was just right, we finished pretty quick. A most delightful day - with a truly talented person who loves what he does. He impressed me, with his probing conversations about Art and Photography.”
~ David Montgomery

Yes for sure when an Englishman sees the Californian light and sun every day something definitely changes within them. It happened to me in 1979 when I first came here planning to stay 2 weeks. Well I’m still here 40 plus years later.

David Hockney is a national treasure and a pleasure to be around and full of life and spirit. His energy is infectious.

"Walking is part of my photography. You need to walk to create the chance of finding things that interest you."

~ Giacomo Brunelli

Animals have been the core of much of Giacomo Brunelli’s work, but here Brunelli has brought us to the streets of London. But it is not just a street shot. It’s from the literal pavement that Brunelli captures the form and perspective of such a large animal, made even more daunting by such an extreme angle. We understand the immensity of the form of a horse and rider in a new way through the image. Viewing Brunelli’s work we attempt to understand the animal kingdom and its innate wildness, and yet we also see the oddity that there are creatures as accustomed to walking our streets are we are.

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

~ André Kertész

New York winters are often cold and extremely harsh and often provoke sad feelings and dark introspective moods.

Such was the case for André. This winter day, February 10th, 1939 to be precise, was no exception. On a brutally cold day he was missing his golden years in Paris where he was treated with great warmth and respect as an important 20th Century artist on a par with his many friends and contemporaries like Mondrian and Chagall. He comes to America with a strong desire to create strong and inventive work and is basically treated as a hired hand by the NY editorial elite with no recognition of his former artistic achievements. He becomes alienated and disillusioned by his lack of success.

Yet still in this state of rejection he manages to create one of his most important images. Using a parabolic mirror that he had brought with him from Paris he creates a highly original distorted Still Life that is also a self portrait of the artist as a wilted flower that nevertheless has the power and beauty of a quiet and haunting masterpiece.

“In all my long life I never again found this kind of light, it was Dantesque.”

~ Sebastião Salgado

“I made exactly 200 rolls of film in 40 days. I lost a lot of my pictures because working close to the fire was very hot. Sometimes there was a fire inside my camera that destroyed all the pictures inside.”

~ Sebastião Salgado

“Before the troops of Saddam Hussein retreated from this area they put explosives in 600 oil wells. Here happened probably the biggest pollution ever made by human beings.”

~ Sebastião Salgado

One of the most dramatic and intense bodies of photojournalist work ever created by one of the greatest photojournalists in the history of this medium.

“I retreated to my Somerset home and walking out of my front door in all weather, through fields, between trees and over hills, watching, waiting, being still - that was my therapy. The photographs reflected that.”

~ Don McCullin

Don’s landscapes in recent years have comprised much of his photographic subject matter and output. But each one is unique unto itself in terms of mood and feeling. The skies are often grey and at times the clouds seem even threatening. But they are haunting with their changing conditions of light much in the same way as Constable painted.

This is no ordinary surf photograph. It is a memory of one of the most important days in World History.

As Walter Iooss Jr describes it,

“On the clear morning of Sept.11th, 2001, I was surfing in front of my house at the end of Long Island when I learned about the planes striking the World Trade Center. A year later, I had a quasi assignment.
“What would you like to photograph on 9/11?" I didn’t know. I think we all had the same feeling, especially in New York: How do you mourn or remember the people who died that terrible day? I decided to go where I had been then. There’s a staircase that goes to the beach in front of my house. I went there at 8:15am with a 4x5 camera and just sat as a few surfers were going out. There were big waves again, as there had been a year earlier, but it was foggy. At 8:46, one minute after the first plane had crashed into the north tower the year before, this fellow walked into the water by Big Rock. This picture of him has special meaning to me. I have no idea who he was. I wish I did.”

“A young man at a spot on the Black River, Arizona where the dark, still pool breaks into the laugh of the rapids…..Because of the Apache’s cunning, his fearlessness and his long resistance to subjection both by the missionary and by the government under whose dominion he has lived but until recent times never recognized, the Apache, in name at least has become one of the best known tribal groups.”

~ Edward S. Curtis

When Edward Curtis first discovered the Native American Tribes they were in a sad and dilapidated state because of the Government’s national policy of displacement, destruction and containment.
His life’s work was to recreate their former glories at the moment of their virtual extinction and give them back their dignity.

“More than the technical perfection, albeit commendable but not always obtainable with the means available to me, I seek the immediacy of the annotation and the sincerity of the sentiment. I appreciate those who through photography conduct difficult studies in composition and style, but I believe that other inclinations are equally legitimate. And so I believe that photography has its own special field in the reproduction of those aspects and those moments in real life that painting cannot always grasp.”

~ Mario De Biasi

This is one of the most joyous street photographs in the history of Neo Realistic Italian Photography.
Of course it could only have been taken in Italy and it has such a 1950’s feel to it. The object of the men’s attention is Moira Orfei who was known as "The Queen of The Italian Circus”.

Mario, one of Italy's greatest photographers of that period, just followed her through the streets of Milan knowing something “special” was bound to happen in that era of post war optimism. Moira was so strong and self-assured in the midst of all this attention and Mario at the top of his game delivered.

The image has such iconic status that it was used as the lead image/poster for the celebrated Guggenheim Museum in New York Exhibition “The Italian Metamorphosis” in 1994 where it delighted huge audiences. As it still does today.

“Photography has given me a life. The very least I could do was to try and articulate these stories with as much compassion and clarity as they deserve, with as loud a voice as I could muster. Anything less would be mercenary.”

~ Don McCullin

Don, in his early reportage work, produced many powerful industrial landscapes. When I look at this one I feel like I am reading an early D.H. Lawrence novel set in the industrial North. This is as far removed from the Swinging London 60’s as could be, the National divide. He captures the bleak, impoverished and desolate north of England through this haunting image of a steel worker on his early morning walk to the factory where he earns his living.

Don imbues it with such respect and empathy for this man’s hard life which pervades his whole body of work and is reflective of his character as a special human being and photographer.