Invention: Individuals who technically raised the bar, and gave something to all of us.

Innocence: Photographers who were at the right place at the right time. There work is priceless, yet it is a time long gone . . .

Eugene Atget Marchand abat-jours1899-1900

Time - History : Reporters; Some I Photographers I love,especially the ones who aren't getting paid by the News services. The real ones, and that is because they are absolutely about history.

This is frustrating, yet somehow you have to see today as tomorrow. Your bland social snaps of today will look very different 100 years from now. Not much good to you, but very funky for your great, great grandchildren.

Richard Avedon : You can not saythe Fifties thru the 80's without Richard Avedon. Class, few will ever have his classical touch and persona. I generally hate personality photos, yet he shot the book on who is who. I also hate sterile studios, yet his worked. It is because of his personality, he had tons of it with the looks togo along!

Horst : Hollywood's classic. He started it all, fashion as a medium. Simplicity.

Charles Edgerton invented the strobe. He was hired by the Air Force to light Germany at night, so that we could evade there deadly air space safely ( before radar ) and photographed it. That technological revolution was incredible, still is ! He also did some great work showing off a strobes capabilities. Milk Drop, bullet through a balloon, ect . .

Ansel Adams : The mule. He would hike up the Sierra Nevada climbing mountains with his 8 x10. He literally wrote the book on photography. Zone V and medium values. I use it to this day. Often I am challenged with Black & White photography. They look old and dated which plays into photographers hands, that sense of history, yet to continue to shoot in B&W today would be a con game.

Edward Muybridge Ascending Stairs 1884-85

Time and space at the dawn of photography. Marcell Duchamp anyone ?

Man Ray : Photographer, Painter ( Born 1890, Died 1976) (Emmanuel Rudnitzky).

Rayograph. 1922. Gelatin silver print. A Da Daiest.

Andy Warhol : Marilyn 1964: Andy is a ( traditional, painterly ) Artist.

Andy brought us POP Art, and the beginning of that conceptual ability to see ourselves as never before. In his brilliance he happened upon photography. It only enhanced his ideas, photography was only a vehicle for him to get to a certain place exposing us all and our plastic sense.

Silkscreen and oil on canvas 40 x 40 in Leo Castelli Gallery, New York

Chuck Close:

A Photo realist, closer to paint, yet he helped to bridge the gap between the two arts, and helped usher in photography as a viable, respectable art.

Dorothea Lange Ditched, Stalled, and Stranded
San Joaquin Valley, California 1935

Part of the Roosevelt's depression WPA employment act, government funded, many great artists and photographers came out of this program. Governments should not do this, yet this is the only time it worked.

Margaret Bourke White : Time Life. The Hover Dam's diversionary tunnels during the construction.

Andre Kertesz
Displaced People, Budapest 1916

Mathew Brady : Civil War Glass plates. Yes they were staged, so he didn't take them all, who cares; no one else had that sense of history. They are unbelievable and sad, walking around with 120p lbs of gear. You could still get shot at, and that was real stench !

Bernice Abbott : Tri-Boro Barber School, 264 Bowery c. 1935-39

Alfred Eisenstaedt : ( Eisey ) Some people get a free ride after being in the right place at the right time. He survived Hitter’s Germany, and worked at the Time life building for the next 60 years of his life. Having a friend there, you would just stumble upon him. One day I brought my portfolio, he liked it very much. So he staged many of his great photos, ( Times Square 1942 Kiss, 6x ) who didn't ?

Edward Steichen : Henri Matisse and “The Serpentine” c. 1909

Eugene Atget Turn of the century. Again I am looking at history.

Weegee ( Arther Fellig ): The best ! Shooting with a monstrous 4x5 Speed graphic, Weege would have a portable darkroom in the back of his car, and deliver the front page,the Daily News before anyone else. Real ! "The Critic " 1943.

Jacques Henri Lartigue : How did he do it 1911?? Incredible images of pre World War I, the innocence of Paris before it was destroyed. Priceless!
Some people are just at the right place, yet he had the gift of conquering technology. Shot with an 8x10 view, and an ASA of about 10, you could only shoot in the bright sunshine. Still he has the balls to shot motion, with that absurdly slow film and slower box camera.

Brassai : Whew !! Paris 1933, yet for only a single year.

Stieglitz :5th Avenue, 1905. Oh to be Stieglitz, owning the Galerie 291, all of the friends, all of the artists, and . . . your married to Georgia O Keefe.

Diane Arbus: She shot the crazies, I am but am voyageur in her world, but she explored it with a respectful touch and love. Remaining truthfulto black & white during the colorful sixties she had a lot of nerve. She was one of a kind. The best, truth till it hurts !

Guy Boudin : He taught me the art of suspense. You have to love his work as it always keeps you hanging on the edge of your seat. They are so well timed. I think he understood the print mediumand how we view work, better than anyone. He is probably my favorite, and the only selection here in color.

Linda Eastman : ( Mrs. Paul Mc Cartny ) She was the biggest groupie going, but the best at it. Like traditional photography, she shot a priceless time in rock and roll history. Her images are unbelievable ! My jaw drops at the history that she lived.

Bruce Weber : the 80's Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein. I loved the chances that he would take, still do. Some of you think that they are vulgar, and sexy, but they are really sweet if you look at them, innocent. Yes he had nerve, that is what you are supposed to do, wake them up. Ironic that a clothes manufacture would hire a photographer who does nudes, yet it was brilliant of Calvin Klein to publish them so wildly.

The Minds Eye:

I think we all have a problem with this one, what we initially see, vs what we actually take a photo of. They are two different things. Often our mind can get in the way when it is a much more intuitive thing.

Reason and logic can be such a burden. It is not an intellectual thing, not a technological thing, but that isolated object that has nothing to do with film. Our inner eye has the ability to isolate and pick out a single point of interest at 100 yards, where as when we get the film back, it is a dot on the film, with none of what we saw. Learning to see what the viewer will see in the end is hard. It is seeing the piece in the context that we originally saw it is key.