THE CAMERA'S EYE
I have had the incredibly good fortune to learn photography and life lessons from many of the most influential photographers in the history of the medium. In the 1980s, I began to photograph and interview photographers for various magazines. This combined my love of photography and history. I didn't know it at the time, but the knowledge gleaned from my Master's degree in Pictorial/Documentary History – a major I created at California State University, Los Angeles – would give me the skills to dive deep into my interviews into what made these photographic luminaries "click."
In 1998, my first book, “Faces of the Twentieth Century: Master Photographers and Their Work” was published by Abbeville Press in English and French editions, Images du 20ème siecle: Vingt photographes regardent leur temps, and a German edition, Gesichter des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts: Meisterfotografen und ihr Werk publish by Weingarten.
In the book, I presented my portraits of twenty photographers along with excerpted interviews illustrated with five of their images. The book won the "Photography Book of the Year" and "Best of Show" awards at the New York Book Festival. I have gone on to publish nine more award-winning books, including "The Way of the Japanese Bath," "Wanderlust," "Inside Iran," "North Korea," The Travel Photo Essay: "Describing a Journey Through Images and The People of the Forest" (about orangutans) as well as continuing my "Photographer Portrait" and interview series which now numbers in the hundreds. I would like to share a few backstories and some words of wisdom by these lenswomen and lensmen, many of whom now reside in the pantheon of photography.
I photographed the legendary magazine photographer (1898-1995) on the terrace of the Time & Life Building in 1993 on his 95th birthday with a Nikkor 85mm lens attached to my Nikon camera body using a large silver reflector camera right. Before I depressed the shutter, advised me, "Always check a gentleman's tie before taking a picture." So, of course, I followed his sage advice and took the larger concept behind his statement to check the person's wardrobe, hair, and so on before my lens. The
