Jay Maisel 1/20/05

If you "Google" Jay Maisel, you'll come up with 8100 hits! This is a man with many honors to his name. Among his awards are the ASMP and PPA Life time Achievement awards. ASMP Photographer of the Year, and International Center of Photography's Infinity Award. He is also in the Art Directors Hall of Fame. He conducts workshops and lectures around the world, and his pictures are in both corporate and museum collections. Two of his recent books are Jay Maisel's New York and A Tribute, about the World Trade Center.

I met Jay in 1955, at Columbia Records office. We were both shooting record covers. Jay started a little earlier working for DANCE magazine and he also did a memorable pharmaceutical assignment by gathering his friends as models and shooting in an abandoned public school to simulate an insane asylum. Jay's strength as a photographer is his terrific eye and the ability to discover new meaning in scenes that we've all seen but never captured in the same way. He shoots constantly and talks about the necessity of doing visual pushups every day.

Jay will show us his new work, which for several years has been totally digital. His transition from film to pixels has been seamless, because his concerns have always been light, gesture, and color and not that much concern for technical nuts and bolts. It promise to be a good show.
-Al Francekevich

Tony Vaccaro 2/17/05

During World War Two Tony Vaccaro carried a rifle and a camera. The camera was his own as he was just an infantry man. He killed with the rifle and recorded what he saw with his Argus C-3. He saw both Germans and Americans fall. Those images were burned in his memory and helped shape his future in photography.

For four years after the war he walked in isolation, unable to make close contact with others, unable to forgive himself. Until he fell in love with a woman who helped transform him into a human being again.

Strange as it may sound he left the 9,000 war scenes he had captured and turned to fashion. Fleur Cowles, founder and editor of Flair Magazine saw his combat images and hired him as her chief photographer. but instead of photographing the Ford models in the studio, he took them to locations around Manhattan. Instead of the cold, remote images of haute couture, he photographed them as human beings, as wives and mothers. For several years he brought his warm, human look to images for LOOK and QUICK, the other Cowles publications.

In 1953 he moved to LIFE magazine and was sent to Rome where he photographed De Sica, Fellini, Anna Magnani, Sophia Loren as well as artists like Burri, Afron and De Chirco.....all in the same spontaneous style he had developed at FLAIR. But the demise of LIFE and LOOK in the early 1970's forced his career in another direction.

Tony 's career has led to books, uncounted awards, France's Legion of Honor among them, as well over 100 exhibitions throughout Europe. Space prohibits more about his prolific career.
-Bob Sharpe

SiteWelder 3/17/05

Alan Dorow of Tango Interactive created SiteWelder to give creative talent an opportunity to display their works 24/7 on the web. Site Welder allows artists, gallery owners, and illustrators to create their own web site from any computer with the flexibility to change images, type fonts, and create image galleries, and bios as needed.

The great news is now you do not have to be a web designer or know html, and you can build your own site with over 250 graphic templates/themes and variety of colors to suit your needs. No special software is needed - you can log on from your Mac or PC.

You can showcase your work at a modest price and gain access to the world wide internet selling your talents any where efficiently. if your inclined to sell prints of your work - a pay pal account can be set up for credit card sales almost instantly. SiteWelder is hosted by secure servers at Equinix.net, one of the premier hosting facilities. Your site can be indexed in Google, Yahoo, and MSN. . Another feature - random page gallery display changes on every new visit giving your site a new look. Multiple type fonts enable you to choose the type size and style. The bottom line is you are in control of the content and appearance of your site. Your logo can be integrated into your site and changes can be made securely as needed. There will be a follow up Q & A session after Alan's presentation. This program is brought to you as a response to our members questions and suggestions on marketing their work. Tango Interactive has created web projects for PDN Online, Kodak, Musarium, ASMP-Philly, ASMP Western NY, DC Photographers, ASPP and others.
-Randy Duchaine

Duane Michals 4/21/05

Duane Michals is never one to follow trends, though he started many. In the 60s he began writing in longhand on his prints, even before Robert Frank. Because he has no faith in the decisive moments of Cartier Bresson, he often does images in series. Note,"Chance Meeting" a six image series of two men passing each other in a noarrow alleyway, turning to look back at each other in successive frames. Or a radical way of dealing with Nobel Prize winner Heisenberg's theory of uncertainty for French Vogue's issue on physics. He used a mirror, much as Lewis Carroll might have done, to reflect a young woman's face. Except the mirror reflects her face with progressive distortion until it completely disappears. As the writer Rosa Olivares comments in her interview with him, "It is his imagination and ability to use what we see to enter a world which cannot be seen."

Duane Michals was born in Mckeevesport, Pa. the son of a steel worker, whose father before him was a steel worker. He says, "I have done everything in photography, absolutely everything. I once made my living as a commercial photographer but I've never been a business, never had a studio, I have no staff, I do everything myself. I didn't want to be Richard Avedon. I didn't want 20 employes. But doing jobs has given me the luxury to do what I wanted." He has exhibited every where and has created over 20 books. He will challenge our assumtions and snap us to attention.
-Bob Sharpe

Vincent Laforet 5/19/05

If you look at the front page of The New York Times or the front page of any section, be it Metro, Sports, Buisness or Art, you may well see a multi-column picture with the by-line Vincent Laforet. One of the Times' youngest photographers, hovering around the age of 30, he is one of their most accomplished. Be it a long lens shot of the Queen Mary seen down a building lined street, a terrific basketball action shot, or a straight down aerial view of summer strollers in Central Park, they bear the same fresh sense of drama. Vincent was born in France and came to America with his mother when he was five. His father, a professional photographer with Gamma in Paris, handed him a Nikon F3 and some rolls of Tri-X when he was 15. He tried it out at the Louvre and from then on he was hooked. He went to Northwestern University where he followed and photographed Michael Jordan on their winning football team, freelanced for Agent France Press wire service, the LA Times, the Miami Herald, and Reuters in Washington D.C. He joined the New York Times five years ago at the age of 25. He has a restless spirit and never likes to take the same picture twice. He likes being a "generalist", likes the varying assignments of a newspaper. He takes them as they come and tries to bring something new to each. From the White House to the Olympics, his work has been published in The Times Magazine, Sports Illustrated, Newsweek, Time, Life, Stern, and paris Match. His work has been recognized in the Pictures of the Year Competition. The Overseas Press Club, The national Headliners Awards, The Professional Hall of Fame. He and four other photographers were awarded the 2002 Pultzer Prize in Feature Photography for their post-9/11 coverage overseas. He has a one year old son and somehow manages to teach photojournalism at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. That he is able to squeeze in a PAI appearance is our good fortune.
-Bob Sharpe

Joe McNally 6/16/05

When Joe McNally last spoke to the PAI February of 2002, 87 of his giant 40"x80" Polaroids of fireman, policemen, medical workers, searchers and survivors of 9/11 still hung in Grand Central Station's Vanderbilt Hall. Certainly one of the most moving and memorable documents of that time. Joe has just returned from following the New York City Opera to Japan. From tragedy to entertainment. His career spans it all. From a picture of a hulking body builder with a 15 foot python slung across his shoulders to a portrait of Gorbachev. From his 32 page cover story "The Future of Flying" for National Geographic (its first all digital story) in 2003 to his recent major portfolio on young, upcoming, athletic players,for Golf Digest, he seems to have seen and done it all. When I asked him how he approached each new subject he replied,"As a novice. I try to approach each asignment with a fresh eye...the way a reader might see it. If I can approach it with a sense of enthusiasm and discovery I feel I've done my job." Joe McNally became a contract photographer for Sports Illustrated in 1985. Then went on to shoot cover stories for Time, Life, Newsweek, National Geographic, Fortune, New York Magazine and GEO. In 1994 he became the first staff photographer hired by Life in over 23yrs, which lasted three years, longer than he thought it would. It is ironic that Life sponsored the Alfred Eisenstaedt Award for outstanding magazine photography which Joe won in 1998. That very same week Life fired him. Such is corporate life. And what is freelance work like now? There are "tons of outlets" he says. But the time is called by time, money, preconceptions and fear. People are afraid to gamble. They want to see the pictures before they are taken. They hire you because of your ability, and then want to know exactly what you're going to do and how long it will take. Creativity doesn't work that way. We are privileged to have Joe McNally speak to us once again and show his work. I could go on to list the awards he has won but we haven't got enough pages.
-Bob Sharpe

Kathleen Fitzgerald-Davis 9/15/05

Kathleen Fitzgerald says of her book DIVAS,DAMES & DOLLS "This collection of portraits and verbal snapshots is a celebration of the 'female spirit' and a tribute to the diversity and strength of women'. It salutes the ordinary yet remarkable lives of fifty-seven older women. As individuals, they couldn't be more different. Some stand out because of their actions in life; others. because of their attitude toward it. Some stood behind a man; others, in front of one. Some remained single by choice; others by chance. Some gave birth to children;others, to ideas. Some worry about money; others seldom think about it. some have overcome serious health problems' a few have never been sick a day in their lives. Some are quiet and shy; others, feisty, gutsy, and always the life of the party. Some stayed happily married for sixty years; others married six times." This remarkable photographic and journalistic journey is the result of a "girls night out"five years ago discussing"what to expect as we grow older". This,by a women married over 30 years with two grown daughters who didn't take up photography until she was 40 (who on her first venture to the darkroom turned on the light). She subsequently studied at The Center for Arts in Pittsburgh, the ICP and The School of Visual Arts in New York. So how does Kathleen find time to speak to the PAI? Our good fortune.
-Bob Sharpe

John Loengard 10.27.05

John Loengard is a modest man. This, despite being one of the great Life magazine photographers and its picture editor from 1978 to 1987 as well as founding picture editor of People magazine. He has a new book coming out, AS I SEE IT (seven others preceded it). Among its images are some captions as fascinating as the images themselves. "I am bigger than a fly. As soon as I walk through the door with a camera, I affect people's behavior. I cannot watch what they do from a spot on the wall, unnoticed. I must draw them out." "Often if something is imperfect in a photograph, I think it makes the picture more real. Photographs that are too smooth and perfect seem less than honest." " I like to use the peculiarity of the moment to make a photograph, the way an oyster takes in a greain of sand and makes a pearl." "I often daydream of pictures before I take them. Although I've never found exactly what I've imagined, such dreams give me a point of view. When I spot something as interesting as what I've dreamt, I start to work." "The reason I like being a photographer is that I do it all myself. Architects need patrons and composers need orchestras. Actors, singers and musicians require audiences , and a writer may be rewritten by editors. But there is not much anyone can do to improve a photograph when it leaves my hands. Photographers are a bit like sculptors, in this way." I asked John if he had a favorite photograph. He said no, but he did have a favorite subject. Georgia O'Keeffe. He felt her husband Alfred Stieglitz had a hand in how she instinctly addressed the camera. I asked John if he had advice for a young person intent on going into photography. "Don't," he said. And if they didn't take his advice? "They must be crazy. But if they're crazy enough they will succeed." -Bob Sharpe

Mark Andres 11.17.05

Mark Andres teaches the blind. He does not teach them Braille. He does not teach them how to use a cane. He does not teach them how to organize their closet. He teaches them how to take pictures. Mind numbing as that may seem, the images they produce are as remarkable as visions from another world. The world of the blind. Using an old 4"x5" speed Graphic, Polaroid negative/positive film and a flashlight in a darkened room he helps the blind and visually impaired create images that exhist in their minds. The totally bllind, who could once see, may try to recapture some image held in memory. Those who have impaired vision may be unable to process the rapidly changing images in the world around them. An image frozen in time allows them to concentrate, to work around their impairment. Amazingly, the totally blind are drawn to the darkroom. They can't adjust and focus the enlarger, but they can insert the paper in the easel, set the timeer, run the paoer through the bathes. Mundane to others, it is an act of creation to them. The pictures are taken in a dertened room with an open shutter. The "photographer" outlines or defines the subject with a flashlight, painting it with light as an artist might paint it with a brush. The "photographer" may use his or her hands to show Mark the area to frame in the camera. Mark is a technician in service of the artist, an enabling collaborator. Nineteen years ago Mark replaced a friend who had been teaching photography at The Lighthouse. He has been at it ever since, giving courses and lectures in Rottendam, Arnhem, Omaha, Nijmegen, The Metropolitan Musem and The Horace Mann School among others. The book of his collaborations is SHOOTING BLIND: by the visually impaired, published by Aperture in 2002. Mark's background is as a commercial photographer who still occasionally takes assignments for the sighted world.
-Bob Sharpe

Howard Schatz 1/19/06

I just spent the better part of the morning going through Howard Schatz's web site, www.howardschatz.com, the most extensive I have ever seen. It encompasses Beauty, Fashion, Dance, Portraits, Kids, Couples, Newborns, Still Life, and Advertising amont others. Each one full of astounding images. That may give you some idea of the diversity of images we may see when Howard appears at our next luncheon. In November, you may remember, Mark Andrus spoke of teaching photography to the visually impaired. It's interestiing that Howard Schatz was a physician,a retinal specialist helping to prevent blindness. It was only on Saturdays that he devoted himself to photography, strictly as an amateur. But when his daughters went off to college he converted the dining room into a studio and got serious. he bought photography books, called the authors to ask how they did things, took a course with Sally Mann in Marin County and one with Jay Maisel in Aspen. His wife bought him an hour of tutoring with a portrait photgrapher. Incredibly, within eight years he had 10 or 20 gallery shows and around a half dozen books published. That was working on Saturdays only. Then in 1995 he decided to take the plunge. He took leave from his medical associates for just a year and moved from San Francisco with his wife Beverly Ornstein to New York. At first work was scarce, but he did a dance book, Passion & line. They were having so much fun that he decided to give it a second year. By the third year he didn't bother asking his medical associates. They knew he was a goner. Since 1995 he has done an amazing amount of work, trying to cram it all in as he was getting older. I guess cramming is an appropiate word. He has 15 books published, another six in the works, clients ranging from Gatorade to De Beers Diamonds, Epson and Sony to the Alvin Ailey dance company. The subjects that seem to have a special attraction for Howard are motion and water. His favorite subjects are dancers. Dancers because of their physical flexibility, water because it allows dancers among others, a freedom of motion unobtainable on dry land. Welcome to the amazing world of Howard Schatz.

Jill Freedman 2/16/06

Ever sleep in a firehouse? Ever ride with cops to a murder scene? Ever travel with a circus? Ever hang out with famous jazz muscians? Ever sing for your supper? Jill Freedman did all that. When she was a child, she always dreamed of being carried off by gypsies. That never happened, but her quest for adventure never left her. After studying Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh she moved to London and did sing for her supper in nightclubs around Europe and at the BBC. She worked for a big ad agency in New York and after Martin Luther King's murder quit to pursue her passion - photography. For seven weeks she lived in the mud with the Poor Peoples Campaign. Her first book."Old News: Resurrection City" based on that appeared in 1970. For "Circus Days" she spent seven weeks of one night stands traveling with the Clyde Beatty - Cole Brothers Circus. Although there were some women, it was primarily a man's world. Her ability to penetrate that world was always one of her greatest strenghts. (A footnote--her favorite elephant was beautiful "Pete".) After that she slept in a firehouse in the South Bronx. No not in a dormitory. In the back seat of the Captain's Car. Did she ever slide down the pole? When she was in nursery school they visited a firehouse. The boys slid down the pole, but the girls in their dresses were not allowed to. So much for sex descrimination. It never seemed to bother her. Not in the "Firehouse", not in "Street Cops", where she traveled with the police to every kind of crime in a tough Manhattan district. There is another book "Jill's Dogs", (non discriminatory), but of the seven published, I think her last , "Ireland Ever", published in 2005 is my favorite. In her quote below, I think her great humanity is revealed, "I think of my work in Ireland as a love poem: a celebration of the beauty of the land, the warmth of her people, the simplicity of the old ways and traditions, the humor and conviviality, the sharp wit and black moods, the kindness....It is an older, gentler Ireland I am documenting, a wild and passionate beauty that feels like the last place on earth. For whatever changes time brings, Ireland will welcome you home with fiddles, pints, and a cow in a field"

Arnold Newman 3/16/06

Pablo Picasso, Igor Stravinsky, Jackson Pollack, Lyndon Johnson, Isaac Stern, Truman Capote, Marilyn Monroe, Otto Frank, Francisco Franco... most anyone of note, whether artist, performer, president, dictator or Nobel Prize winner was photographed by Arnold Newman, each in his own way. No two alike in what later became known as enviormental portraiture.

The seeds of that style were sown in 1938 in the middel of the Great Depression whan Arnold Newman quit school out of financial neccessity and switched from painting to photography. "I worked in a chain of inexpensive portrait studios where everything was done by the numbers. But I got tired of doing it the same way. The same pose, the same background, the same lighting, the same expression. You couldn't tell the difference between somebody who worked in a factory assembly line and the guy right next to him on the wall of the display room who owned the factory. They never even met but looked the same. You wouldn't know what they did, what they were about. I wanted to say something about the people. It was that simple."

"The portrait." Arnold says. "is a form of biography. Its purpose is to inform now and to record history.....I work the way I do because of the kind of person that I am - my work is an expression of myself. It reflects me. My fascination with people, the physical world around us. I do not claim that my way is the best way or the only way, it is simply my way. It is an expression of myself, of the way I think and feel."

From the time in 1941 when he was "discovered by Beaumont Newhall of the Museum of Modern Art and Alfred Stieglitz he has been exhibited and collected by every major museum in the world. Twelve books, nine honorary doctorates, lecturer at the institute of Advanced Studies, Princeton,N.J., none have lessened his quest fo that look, for the image that captures that one individual.

PAI is honored to have Arnold Newman as our next speaker. -Bob Sharpe

Builder Levy 4/20/06

Builder Levy is a documentary photographer in the tradition of Lewis Hine and Dorothea Lange. He has been photographing for almost a half century. His photographs certainly fulfill the documentary goal of increasing public awareness, and at the same time they are beautifully crafted artistic objects in their own right. He believes in making all of his own prints as part of the creative photographic process. His recent book Builder Levy, photographer (A.R.T. Press,2005) is printed in the tritone process and the reproductions display much of the true photographic quality of his prints.

Builder's subject matter ranges from the gritty streets of the Bushwick section of Brooklyn, where he was a teacher of inner city at-risk adolescents until his retirement from teaching in 2000, to Mongolia, Cuba, and the coal mines of Appalachia. In addition, he has photographed many civil rights protests. (I can identify with Bushwick- I grew up there. However, it changed a lot after 1960 when I left the neighborhood, but it was nostaligic to recognize the streets that Builder portrays.)

Levy's photgraphs have appeared in more than 170 exhibitions worldwide, including more than 40 solo shows. His work is in more that 60 public and private collections throughout the world including the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Levy received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in photography (in 1981) and a Alicia Patterson Foundation Fellowship to revisit coalfield apalachia in 2004.

Levy has a Masters degree in art education from New York University, and a Bachelors of Arts from Brooklyn College where he studied painting with Ad Reinhardt and photgraphy with Walter Rosenbaum. He attributes much of his informal education to his friendship with Helen Levitt and Paul Strand. -Al Francekevich


Chester Higgins 5.18.06

If you have been reading the New York Times in recent weeks, you may have seen in the Metro section, LENS, a series of portraits by Chester Higgin Jr. of distinguished African Americans, a CEO, a sculpture and an editor. They resemble in style some of the great portraits by Yousef Karsh of Ottawa. If it were not fo an accident Chester would not have been with the New York Times for almost 31 years. He would have taken his degree in Buisness Management from Tuskegee University in a far different direction.

By accident he saw some photographs by his mentor at Tuskegee, P.H. Polk (Booker T. Washington's offical photographer), of southern African Americans farmers from the 30s. They were portrayed with great dignity. He had never seen anything like it before, the portrayal of poor blacks with such compassion. He was overcome with a need to capture his great aunt and uncle in that way. He used to spend hours listening to his uncle, learning from his life experiences. To capture him in a photograph would be an act of love. And that is what photography became to him, an act of love, an attempt to capture the dignity and potential of black people.

When he finally had the mosney to buy his own camera and learn to use it, he wrote to every photography editor in New York. The great photography editor Arthur Rothstein of Look spent endless hours critiquing his work before he even worked for the magazine. After he was hired, Look closed down after two months. Shortly thereafter he was freelancing for The New Times and went on staff in 1975.

Chester Higgins photographs have appeared in Life, Look, Time, Newsweek, Fortune, Ebony, Essence, and Black Enterprise. He has had five books published with a sixth about to come out. His work has been exhibited in museums around the world.

In his book Elder Grace: The Nobility of Aging, the poet Maya Angelou said of the portaaits, "Their resoulute faces attest to the mountains climbed and the rivers forged. The somberness of their eyes is evidence of ....demons....faced down....and despair....overcome...." Chester Higgins is still in love with his subjects and phtography - Bob Sharpe


Ray Fischer 6.15.06

Ray Fisher is associated with portraits of entertainers, celebrities,and other notables, and always in black and white. The pictures he's now presenting are in color. He calls them "Universal Designs" - since they are universally observed but not really seen. He's been doing theses photos over the last thirty years, combining his love for flea markets, garage sales, boot sales as they are called in England, antique markets, and New York Street Fairs with his profession of photography. These photographs were made all over the world, including London, Paris, Budapest, Miami. and New York.

"What has intrigued me at these places is the variety of items that are displayed and the manner in which they are presented to the public. I always have found these displays wonderful examples of design that are displayed to make them most attractive to the eye, so that they will sell."

He's usually photographed these displays with a macro lens. He always asks the dealer permission to photograph his merchandise. Occasionally the dealer says no for a number of reasons, so Ray passes on to the next display.

Ray staarted his photo career while still in high school by landing a summmer job at NBC'S New York Photography Department. After he graduated from Miami Beach High School (which recently inducted him into their hall of fame), he entered the Army and trained at their photography school in Astoria. (Three of other PAI Signal Corps members were stationed there at various times - Frank Wolfe, Paul Katz, and Al Francekevich). Ray documented Patton's advance through Germany. He was awarded a Purple Heart and a commendation for his efforts in getting stained glass windows returned to their rightful owner - the Strasbourg Cathedral in France.

After college he turned down an offer from Life Magazine to work in New York to stay in Miami. There, he spent 16 years at the Miami Herald, becoming chief photographer and picture editor.
He struck out on his own as a free-lancer and in that role continued to do portraits and annual report work for many of the companies in the Fortune 500. His awards are too numerous to mention. His portrait work is available through TIME/LIFE (now a part of Getty) and his fine art work is represented by the Howard Greenberg Gallery.

Jerry Dantzic  9.21.06

Since 1999, Grayson Dantzic has been dedicated to re-establishing the photographic legacy of his father, two-time Guggenheim Fellow, Jerry Dantzic,
and to the doucmentation and preservation of the work taken during Jerry Dantzic's 50 year career.

A PAI board member since 2002, on the Photography Committee of the National Arts Club and Steering Committee of ASMP-NY, Grayson will be completing his Masters degree in Archives & Records Management at the Palmer School of Library & Information Science in December 2006. He is currently an intern at the institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University.

Among the many facets of the elder Dantzic's career was his mostly unknown images of Jazz Legends such as Louis Armstrong, Chet Baker, Miles Davis, Billie Hiliday & Dizzy Geillespie.

Jerry Dantzic shot record album covers for Bethlehem, Coral, Columbia, Decca, Epic, RCA Victor, Roulette, and Tico in the 1950s & 60s. He also captured performance images of many jazz icons in their prime at concerts, clubs, sessions & during television appearances. In a 1959 Salon Magazine article "Close Up Portraits," Jerry Dantzic said "If truth is the last refuge of scoundrels then the extreme close-up serves that purpose for the photographer".

Through Jerry Dantzic's jazz photography, Grayson has been privileged to work with many highly respected members of the jazz community such as the late George T. Simon, producer, writer, and music consultant, Phoebe jacobs, Executive Vice President of the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation, Lewis Ricci, Director of the International Jazz Collections at the University of Idaho and Tad Hershorn, Archivist at the Institute of Jazz at Rutgers University.

Hoping to also follow in his father's educational footsteps, Grayson has given seminars on various aspects of Jerry Dantzic's photography at Universities, Public Libraries and High Schools.

In the summer of 2006, Grayson curated an exhibition of his father, Jerry Dantzic's Jazz Photography at the Public Radio Station WBGO's Gallery in Newark, NJ and also arraanged for images by Jerry Dantzic and Hugh Bell to be included in the Torneau Gallery's "Dizzy Gillespie Exhibition of Rare Photographs and Memorabilia." Grayson was also invited by 2006 Shanghai International Photo Week Committe to curate a Jerry Dantzic exhibition of 35 photographs at the Shanghai Art Museum.

Just last week, Grayson gave a presentation of his father's rare 1957 Billie Holiday photographs for ASMP-NJ. Jerry has been a member of ASMP-NY since then.

Eric Meola  10.19.06

We're lucky that Eric Meola didn't become a brain surgeon. His father weas a doctor and wanted Eric to be a doctor too. But that was the last thing Eric wanted. Instead he became an English Literature major at Syracuse University. One day, to get Eric out of his hair, his dad told a patient who was an engineer to give Eric a photography lesson, take him into the darkroom, make a print, whatever. When Eric saw the image emerge from blank white sheet of paper, he was hooked. Magic was one of his great passions and what he saw in the developer tray was, indeed, magic. The rest of his life was preordained.
Back in the mid 60's photography was a profession, but not like it is today, drawing students to courses around the country. What he found in the Syracuse Journalism School was not too productive. So before graduation he contacted Pete Turner, one of the great photographic stylist,for and interview. He subsequaently worked as Pete's asistant for 18months, immersed in images of highly saturated color and powerful compostion. Images that would shape his work when he opened his own studio in 1971.
Among his early clients were Life, Travel & Leisure, Esquire and Time. They must have had the same reaction to his images as I had. The phrase "Cut to the chase" comes to mind. There is nothing extraneous in Eric Meola's images. No extra detail, no loose composition, no wandering eye. Everything is tightly composed, often in close-up, often highly saturated.
At this point Eric had to decide whether he wanted to be a photojournalist for National Geographic or continue in the commercial world. Thinking 30 years ahead and what his security might be, he chose the money. His commercial clients included Canon, Nikon, IBM, Kodak, American Express, United Technologies, Porsche and BMW.
The interesting thing is, in his travels for clients to Africa, Burma, India, New Guinea and other places, he always took time on his own to do his own thing. He had his cake and ate it too. His passion for photography never cooled. And his awards are too numerous to mention.
Eric's first book Last Places On Earth was sponsored by Kodak. A second on Bruce Springsteen taken in B&W 30 years ago will be out soon. Hopefully we will see work from both and much more.
The question is, if Eric had not seen that image magically appear in the develping tray in a pre-digital age, and had seen digital moitor instead, would he have been hooked on photography. Bob Sharpe

Ross Lowell 11.30.06

If you are in the photographic industry, at one time or another you have probably heard of or used Lowell -Lights, an Academy Award honored light weight lighting system. There is a first name associated with that....it's Ross. Ross Lowell ...inventor, cinematographer, author, teacher and gifted nature photographer...our next PAI speaker. His accomplishments in so many areas make this a difficult piece to write.
     As cinematographer and often director Ross has done films for The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The National Gallery, PBS, ABC television, filmed behind the scenes with John Houston, Richard Burton, Deborah Kerr and Ava Gardner, and documented Otto Preminger working on the Catdinal. His work has garnered Academy Awards, Peobody and Emmy Awards and others at world film festivals tooo numerous to mention. In-between he has done hundreds of commercials.
     On his return from the Navy after W.W.II as a stills and film camerman he joined a New York documentary film union as an assistant, but he was such a poor assistant he quickly decided he could never make a living that way. So he become a cinematographer. Good decision.
     In 1980, at the peak of his career he bought 3 1/2 acres of beautiful wooded land with a pond in Pound Ridge, NY. Thinking to save money building his house, he decided to be his own contractor. Big Mistake. If he wasn't around, nothing got done. So Ross spent the next three years guiding his dream house into being.
     This brings me to what Ross is going to show us at the luncheon. that house and the land surrounding it become Ross's studio. At first, using an early 2 megapixel camera, he started recording what he saw. In the beginning there was no theme. But he came to be fascinated by the rocks and the trees. The battle for turf between them. Decaying wood returning to nature. That became the title of the book he is working on Rocks & Trees: Reflections on Four acres.
     Many of the images Ross captures now with his 8 Megapixel Olympus (modified of course) are different. They have a freshness of vision I have rarely seen in nature photography. Often they are close-ups, sometimes aided by mirrors or silvered spheres, often abstract so you're not really sure what you're looking at, microphoto or aerial. Their color and composition are fascinating. Come to the luncheon on  November 30 and judge for yourself. Bob Sharpe

Jason Eskenazi 12.21.07

     Jason Eskenazi is a photo journalist who likes to look into the abyss. Born in Brooklyn he went to Moscow two months before the coup that led to the fall of the regime. Later, through his friendship with Zana Briski who made the Academy Award film on the children of Calcutta prostitutes, he went to Israel to organize Kids With Cameras in Jerusalem's Old City where Jewish and Arab children live in the midst of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.
     Jason chose 12 children from each side. The Jewish kids through a community center, the Arabs through fliers and off the streets. Neither group knew about the other. Some of the Jewish kids knew English, others needed a translator. He communicated with the Arab kids by teaching them a few words of English, the rest through trial and error. They were all given point and shoot cameras, all the film they needed, and encouraged to photograph whaterver they wanted. This in the midst of a raging conflict.
      And what did they photograph? That is what we will see. This I will tell you, when they finally saw some of the pictures taken by what they felt were their sworn enemies, after initially scorning them, they asked questions. What is that little curl the Hasidim wear? Is that what the inside of a mosque looks like? What is that they're eating? Questions any tourist might ask. They would never talk to each other in the street, but this was somehow different.
     The real test has yet to come,. Jason says. That will be when enough money can be raised to print and mount exhibitions that can be seen by many on both sides. Perhaps it could be the beginning of understanding.
     Jason Eskenazi is a photographer in his own right. He has had a Guggenheim grant, a Fullbright Fellowship, a Dorothea Lange award and others. That he had the facility and drive to bring this off is an achievement to be admired. He halso has a book coming out in two or three months on Russia.

John Dominis 1.18.07

John Dominis, like many of his contemporaries, came up the hard way.  He joined the Air Force in 1943, serving in Japan until his discharge, when he continued his career as a freelance photographer for the Saturday Evening Post. He joined the staff of LIFE in 1950 and remained at that publication until the magazine closed its doors in 1972.  During his stint with LIFE, his assignments reflected his versatility, as he covered the Korean , Loatian and the early years of the Vietnam wars, riots in Japan, a plethora of sports events including five Olympic Games, and the White House, where he won the White House Photographers Award for his coverage of President Kennedy. In 1966, John was named "Magazine Photographer of the Year" by the University of Missouri, the nation's highes thonor in magazine photography. He later served as Picture Editor at PEOPLE MAGAZINE and SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, before he returned to his first love, shooting pictures as a freelance magazine photogapher.


James Estrin 2.15.07

I would see James Estrin's photo credit in the New York Times frequently. The thing that attracted me was the diversity of subject-matter he tackled.  The Times has many specialists who do spot news or sports or war or art or human interest . Jim Estrin seemed to do them all with equal finesse.  Most photographers would be insulted if you called them generalists.  Not Jim. An example of this is the picture  on the front cover of this issue. The first anniversary of 9/11 on the moment the first building fell.  More than 50 photographers were on the rooftop covering the event, but Jim was the only one to get this shot with the swilrling  dust that looked like some medieval ritual.  The photo of Sheik Rida Shata, an Egyptian-born Muslim is among  many Jim took of the sheik, his Family and his congregation in Brooklyn and Middletown, New Jersey.  This image was one of six that were credited to Jim in a two -part series on the world of Muslims in America in The New York Times Magazine.

         Jim Estrin considers himself a story-teller. He first sensed that at the age of 16, using his father's old Exacta camera. He knew he wanted to be a photojournalist, but he went  on to college to give himself other options. Photo jourmalism won out. He hit the job market when newspapers were in recession and ended up at the Jackson Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Mississippi, run by a young man just out of journalism school who brought in marvelous new talent.  When Gannett took over the Clarion-Ledger, Jim moved to New York, freelancing for all of the NY papers for four and half years until the NY Times put him on staff.  Now a Senior Photographer, Jim often proposes stories such as the series he did in 2004 and 2005 on assisted suicide and dying in Oregon.

     His advice to young people who want to enter the field is simply, "Don't expect to be a photo journalist and just take pictures. If that's what you want, be a fine art photographer."  He points out that to be a photo journalist, you have to look ahead. The newspaper business is changing, he notes, and the internet is upon us.  Media such as the Times have their own sites and talented  people are going to fill them.  Jim Estrin has been doing audio slide shows on the side, and we're fortunate to have the opportunity to see one of them at our February meeting.   Bob Sharpe

Bob Sharpe 3.15.07

Bob Sharpe has offered to fill in for Amy Arbus with new images called SILENT CITY,  his 141 image slide show of Manhattan at night. Shot over 13 nights in 2005-2006, it is an eloquent, different kind of look at Manhattan from Harlem to Alphabet City.  He describes it as follows:

      "At certain times the city is overcome by a quiet stillness.  The store fronts are dim and grated, the mannequins alone, the subways quiet, restaurant chairts stacked, parks closed. All await another day."

     "When I walk from Grand Central around Manhattan the mood shifts from block to block.  The windows and what's behind them take on a life of their own.  Fleeting images expand  from the darkness. As I walk I try to capture that. When the sun rises i know it will be gone."

     Bob has been a photographer since he was ten when he developed and printed his work in the bathroom.  Some 20 years later  he was doing his own "C" prints (thats when it took 50 minutes for a test}.  His work has been published in the Chicago Tribune Magazine, Popular Photography, Leica Magazine and The New York Times. His work is in the permanent collection of The Brooklyn Museum of Art and The Baltimore Museum.

     As a writer-director he worked for such television programs as OMNIBUS with Alistar Cook, The SEVEN LIVELY ARTS with John Houseman and Andy Rooney, the NBC Special Projects Department, and THE TWENTIETH CENTURY series with Walter Cronkite during the Golden Age of Television.  His feature documentary BEFORE THE MOUNTAIN WAS MOVED, about the devastation strip mining inflicted on people's lives in Appalachia, was nominated for an Academy Award.  Bob currently listed in WHO'S WHO IN AMERICA and WHO"S WHO IN THE WORLD.

Duane Michals 4.19.07


Excerpts "Tattle-Tales From The Land of Fauxtography"  By Duane Michals

Editor's Note: Duane Michals last spoke to PAI in April of 2005. His irreverent and scatological new book "HOW PHOTOGRAPHY LOST ITS VIRGINITY ON THE WAY TO THE BANK" Says what many think but may be too timid to say.  Timidity is not one of Duane's characteristics.  For more, see and hear him on Thursday, April 19, for now, here's a taste of Duane.....

-Photography has never been about money, it had always been about phtography. Now that the Haute Kunsters have deemed it art, it's all about money and not photography.
-if a photography is labeled a mere photograph it is only worth $3, 000; if a photograph is labeled a conceptual piece, it fetches $300,000.
-Never trust any photograph so large that it can on ly fit inside a museum. Color is the new black and white.
-The announced demise of the decisive moment is premature.
-Garry Winogrand was a snapshooter. A snapshooter is a voyeur who loves the act of taking pictures but doesn't necessarily care about the photographs. He left 7,000 rolls of undeveloped film.
-Diane Arbus is authentic. Cindy Sherman is unauthentic.
-Museums should never exhibit photographs of visitors looking at art in museums to visitors who are looking at art in museums.
-The menage a trios of the symbolic relationship between dealers, critics and museums defines contemporary art.  The imprimatur of this art-industrial complex informs the hedge fund arrivistes how to decorate their walls with trendy conspicuous consumption.
-An eight -by-ten inch photograph by Robert Frank can be herioc. An eight-by-ten foot Gursky is just a bill board with pretensions.
-This year's Speedo Prize for Cultural Malfeasance is awarded to MoMa for its sophomoric juxtaposing of a glorius Cezanne bather painting with a Dijkstra nerdy teenage bather. Despite the superficial similarities of the subject matter and size, they had nothing in common except embarrassment.  Proximity cannot bestow pedigree.
-Fashion photography is often artful but seldom art.
-A critique of Representation claims that Representation happens when someone believes that a depiction is adequate to its referent,but is deceived in that  belief, or deceives others about it, or both.   Representation occurs in the process of  self-deception, and so it becomes the object  of deconstruction.
-Jeff Wall, Jeff Wall, Phaidon, now showing at MoMa
(PAI bears no responsibility for interpretation of the above.)

Randy Duchaine   5.17.07

       There's an elegantly meticulous quality to the enviormental portrait work of Randy Duchaine, but don't assume a tremendous amount of planning  goes on beforehand.  In fact, on many of Duchaine's corporate assignments, which take him to boardrooms, tequila factories, and wind farms around the world, he may have only five minutes to shoot.
       "it's like spontaneous combustion," this Brooklyn -based photographer says from his home in Windsor Terrace section of the borough. "Basically you jump in and just avail yourself to a higher authority.  It's fun, thrilling, and scary , all at the same time."  This is not to say Duchaine is some kind of "seat-of-the pants" photographer.  In fact, he's extremely prepared and professional, with a client list that includes  American Airlines, Anheuser-Busch, IBM, and Microsoft.  It's just that when you're dealing with the CEO's of international corporations, their time is at a premium.  As Duchaine puts it, you've got to be "fast, flexible, and nimble."
     Take a recent assignment in Mexico to photograph the head of Jose Cuervo Tequila company for an annual report.  Duchaine had originally planned to photograph him in Guadalajara,  where they make the Tequila.  But like a lot of the best -laid plans of mice and men, and environmental photographers, that idea had to be scrapped at the last minute.  "We ended up photographing him  at the end of
a bar at the Cuervo headquarters in Mexico City." Duchaine says. "It took us two and a half hours to set up, and we had five minutes to shoot, which is actually fairly typical."
     Influenced by the landmark portrait work of Duane Michals and Arnold Newman, Duchaine sees enviormental portraiture as an attempt to create "a visual narrative" of a person.  Because he never knows what environment he's going to photograph his subjects in, which is the very core of environmental portraiture, Duchaine has to prepare in other ways.
     "I do reserach, lots of research," he says, "I learn about their personal lives, their hobbies, even where they went to school.....I find out not only who they are, but how they might react to being photographed. I encourage my subjects to get involved."
     Duchaine says, "I'm passionltely crazy about what I do.  I'm gaining entry to places most people never get a chance to go.  Photography is basically a license to steal experience." 
 
Excerpted from an artiicle in Studio Photography and Design by Dan Havlik.   www.danhavlikindustries.com


Gregory Heisler 6.21.07

Gregory Heisler is a New York - based photographer who is renowned for his technical mastery and thoughtful responsiveness.  His enthusiasm, curiosity, and drive are maniftested in his hands-on  approach to all aspects of the image making process. 
    His iconic portraits and innovative essays have often graced the covers and pages of many magazines, including Life, Esquire, Gentleman's Quarterly, Geo, Sports Illustrated, Espn, and The New York Times Magazine, yet he is perhaps best known for his more that seventy Time cover portraits. He has also photographed advertising campaigns for such clients as American Express, Benson & Hedges, Dewar's, Merrill Lych, Nike, and  Zocor.
    Private portrait commissions  are another important focus of Gregory's work.  The first photographic portrait for New York's City Hall was his lithographic print of Mayor Edward I. Koch.  The New York Public Library followed suit, commissioning a portrait of Marshall Rose which is presently exhibited in the Library's Main Branch at Forty-second Street and Fifith Avenue. Most recently, New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg comissioned a portrait by Gregory which now hangs in the atrium of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland.
    As a  sought-after speaker and educator, Gregory has taught at the Internantional Center of Photography, the New School for Social Research, The School of Visual Arts (Master of Fine Arts Program), Parsons  School of Design, The Smithsonian Institution ( Masters of Still Photography Series). and the National Geographic Society , as well as scores of workshops and seminars throughout the country and overseas.
    Among kudos he has received are the  Alfred Eisenstadt Award , and the Leica Medal of Excellence. Gregory had been profiled in American Photo, Communications Arts, Esquire, Life and numerous industry periodicals
    

Amy Arbus  9. 20. 2007

  Amy Arbus almost didn't become a photographer.  She almost became a multi media artisan.  She almost became a muscian.  Anything but a photographer.
     Amy's mother Diane Arbus and father were famous photographers.  It seemed they had done it all.  There was nothing left to do.
So she turned to other things.  She spent years studying painting, pottery and weaving.  She went to the Berklee College of Music and played wind instruments.  If she hadn't fallen and broken two front teeth she might still be playing flute and saxophone.
     It wasn't until her mother was gone and her father became an actor that in a moment things changed.  With a friend's borrowed camera in hand, Amy visited a local park, saw a baby in a bonnet, and photographed the child. The result sowed an image that looked like a little old man.  She was entranced.  She sensed she could see things in a different way.
      She studied with Bill Burke and Linda Conner in Boston, Came to New York  and worked for Jean Pagliuso a fashion photographer for two years.  For the next ten years she worked for the Village Voice on a series called "On The Street", street fashion as portraiture.
The tag line was "There are eight million fashions in the Naked City and Amy Arbus is going to photograph them all". Not quite.   But  you can see 70 of them in her new book "On The Street 1980-1990". In the book and on the cover of the Imagist is The Clash, a British band in  1981 standing out on the sidewalk and with hopeful extras waiting to get into Martin Scorcese's "King of Comedy". She took it as she passed.
      Her work now is quite different.  She switched from 35mm to medium format which gives her better texture and more detail. Her subjects are posed in a way to make them appear spontaneous.
     Amy Arbus, now in her 26th year as a photographer, contributes to New York Magazine's theater section.  Her work has appeared in  over 100 periodicals world wide including  The New Yorker, Aperture, ESPN,  and the New York Times Magazine.  Her commercial clients include American Express, Nickelodian, Saatchi & Sastchi, etc.  She has published three books.  She teachers portraiture at ICP,
 The Toscana Photographic Workshops and The Fine Arts Work Center.  She has had 15 solo exhibitions world wide and is in the  collections of MoMA and the New York Public Library.  So much for not beiing a photographer.     Bob Sharpe

Bruce Davidson  10.18.07

Bruce Davidson is one of America's most respected and influential documentary photographers. His love of the medium began in Oak Park, Ill. when, at the age of 16, he won his first prize in the Kodak National High School Competition. He went on to attend the  Rochester Institute of Technology and Yale University.  After Military service in 1957, Davidson worked as a freelance photographer for Life Magazine and in 1958 he become a member of Magnum Photos, the international photography agency.

Davidson continued to photograph extensively from 1958 to 1966, creating such bodies of work as "The Dwarf," "Brooklyn Gang," and "The Civil Rights Movement."  In 1963, the Museum of Modern Art  (MOMA) included a number of the Civil Rights images among others, in a "One Man" show.

Bruce Davidson's work has been described as "... extraodinary for the depth of feeling and their poetic mood," and in 1966, he was awarded the first grant for photography from the National Endowment for the Arts.  The next two years were spent documenting one block in East Harlem, a compilation that was published by Harvrad University Press titled "East 100th Street." The work became a solo exhibition that year at MOMA.

He received a second Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1980, the same year he was awarded an Open Society Institute Fellowship.

Davidson's work has been shown in the finest museums and institutions in the world, including ICP in New York; The Walker Art Museum, Minneapolis;  Museum de Tokyo, Paris, France; the Smithsonaianm Institute, Washington, D.C.; the Museum Ratuu, Arles, France; and the New York Historical Society, among a host of others.  He continues to work as an editorial and documentary phtographer, appearing regularly in publications all over the globe. He lives in New York with his wife and has two daughters.

Peter Turnley 11.15.07

Peter Turnley, an internationally renowned photo journalist and consummate observer and photographic reporter of most every major world event of the last two decades, will offer a lecture and presentation of his work entitled, "Moments of the Human Condition 1972-20078" at our monthly luncheon meeting on November 15th. Through the magic of his images, Turnley will cover many of the most important geo-political and human themes of the past 35 years.
 
     Former assistant to the great photographer Robert Doisneau, Peter Turnely is currently a contributing editor for Harper's magazine for which he creates eight page essays on pertinent national and international themes in "the grand tradition of visual authorship."  He has documented major world events including the revolutions in Eastern Europe, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the 1991 Gulf War,  the Balkans, Somalia, Rowanda, Hati, South Africa, Chechnya, the Israeli-Palestime confilict, Kosovo, 9/11 and the present war in Iraq.  He has photographed and reported on many of the world's most influential people from Arafat to Mother Theresa, and worked as a contract photographer for Newsweek where his images appeared on 43 covers.  The author of several books, Peter Turnley teaches overseas workshops for the Maine Photographic Workshops.  He currently resides in New York and Paris.  An overview of Peter Turnley's career may be found at www.peterturnely.com .

Rebecca Lepkoff 1.17.08

Rebecca Lepkoff has been photographing New York City since the late 1930's. The Lower East Side by the 1930's had become a vibrant multithnic community full of families and friends. The residents congregated on stoops, street corners, sidewalks, fire escapes, and rooftops of the neighborhood tenements and shared the unique languages, food, and festivals of their various cultures.
   Rebecca Lepkoff, herself a child of immigrant parents, grew up in this community. The faces of the Lowere East Side became her muse and through the lens of her camera she captured the lives of a spirited neighborhood: Photographs by Rebecca Lepkoff, 1937-1950, was the first monograph of her work highlighting the area between the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges from the Bowery to the East River.  They uncover a forgotten time and place and reveal how the Lower East Side remains both unaltered and forever changed.
     Born in 1916, she bought her first camera in 1938.  With a background in modern dance and art history she had a strong sense of light and action. Her exquisite prints, which she made herself, are rich in tones and subtleties of light and dark. She was associated with the Photo League from 1947 to 1951. Her work, which continued through the 70's and 80's, is included in such prestigious collections as The National Museum of Art (Washington, D.C.), the National Gallery of Canada, the Museum of the City of New York, the Bank of America, and the Consolidated Freightways, Inc. collection. She is represented by the Howard Greenberg Gallery.
     She still creates beautiful photographs today as well as ceramic art and wonoderful quilts (which are not for sale!). Her time is divided between her SoHO loft and country home in Vermont.   Books will be available for signing.
    

Cynthia Matthews 2.21.08

Cynthia Matthews has traveled the globe for corporate and editorial clients most notable Town & Country magazine, where she has shot over 50 feature stories, capturing  the moods and lifestyles of the sporting world.. often with cameras flying, she has sailed over fences with foxhunters, galloped through velvety French forest behind staghounds and chased bird dogs across the sorghum fields of the deep South. "I do the country part of Town & Country," she said. From horse racing with corporate moguls, to bird dog trials over sloppy, wet terrain, she has photographed the top-hatted and the mud -splattered, and she has captured the esence and exitcitemkent of the event in the process. Cynthia shoots much of her personal work in black and white and finds certaiin joy in printing and toning her own prints the old fashioned way - in the "wet"darkroom. One of her on-going projects is explorinig the quiet drama of New York City in the snow.

Frank Paulin 3.20.08

A background as a fiashion illustrator and a stint as an army photographer served as a strong foundation for Frank Paulin's success in his later years.   He attended Chicago's Art Institute as a teenageer and earned enough in his field to support both his mother and him.  Like many young men in the early 1940's Frank's life was interrupted by the draft, and he found himslef in Nuremberg, Germany where he was assigned the task of photographing displaced persons for identification purposes.  This is where his interest in photography took off... with a Kodak 35 and a Leica in hand, he captured the images of people he encounterd who were affected by the ravages of war.  After the war, Frank returned to Chicago, studied with Lazlo Moholy-Nagy, Frank Callahan and Arthur Siegel.  He resumed his career as a fashion illustrator, photographing the hustle bustle of New York street night life.  His work has been exhibited in the famed Limelight Gallery and is in the permanent collections fo the Museum of the City of New York and the University of Arizona, Tuscon.  The Bruce Silverstein Gallery is his exclusive representation for his vintage and current photographs.

Lois Greenfiled 4.17.08

PAI is indeed fortunate to have had a roster of extraordinarily talented speakers for our luncheon meetings over the past year.  May will be no different. Our meeting will feature a legendary photographer whose specialty is both intriguing and exciting.  She captures the world of dance as few of her genre have done in recent times. We look forward to sharing her images and her thoughts with her.
    Lois Greenfiled  began her career as a photojournalist but was drawn to the graphic potential of dance.  For twenty years she covered the experimental dance scene for the Village Voice.  In 1982, she decided to open a studio where she could not only control the lighting, but could also direct the dancers in her exploration of movement's expressive potential.  Her unique approach to photographing the human form in motion has radically redefined the genre, and influenced a generation of photographers.
     Greenfield has created signature images for most of the major contemporary dance companies. Many of these can be seen in virtually every major magazine, her 1992 monograph, Breaking Bounds (Chronical Books), as well as in her volume, Airborne (Chronicle Books, 1998). Her work is exhibited in galleries and museums around the world, and commercial clients have picked up on the potential of her unique vision. Her newest venture has taken her career full circle, collaborating and performing around the world with the Australian Dance Theater in "Held" a dance inspired by her photography in which she shoots the live action as part of the performance.  The latest exhibition of Greenfiled's work, Resonationg Fields, brings together a collection of her pioneering work in dance photography with images of the beauty and strength of the human body.  For more imformation on Lois Greenfiled, visit her on the web at www.loisgreenfiled.com.

Peter Aaron 5.15.08

Peter Aaron is a pioneer in combining cinematic style with architectural photography techniques. His digital images are lively and luminous, and certainly worthy of interest by PAI members.

Aaron studied organic chemistry at St. Edmund Hall, Oxford University. He received a BA in physics from Bard College and an MFA from New York University Insititute of Film and Television. He worked as a film cameraman prior to deciding to concentrate on architectural photography, a specialty at which he has excelled for more than 35 years.

His experience as an assistant to Ezra Stoller was "transformational." He followed his mentor's techniques and integrated dramatic camera angles and theatrical
lighting into his work, emerging as a contributing photographer with Architectural Digest, and other prestigious magazines and several books.  Aaron has documented a number of projects by architect Robert A.M. Stern, and his work is featured on two websites: www.ramsa.com and www.esto.com

Arlene Gottfried 6.19.08

Arlene Gottfried is a photographer with an eye and a mind on the city streets - an insider with an ability to capture images of life that are raw, hard -edged and caustic and at the same time affectionate, and loving.  She is a photographic collector of secret intimacies, ecstatic moments, and the common occurrences of ives lived close to an abyss and very near joy. A scavenger for bright colors, the tellling gesture, and the wandering glance in the interactions of people at, and outside the margins, she is the funky, casual observer of life's everyday happenings. Deceptively like snapshots, her photographs always speak from the perspective of a best friend, an invited guest, a member of the wedding. The heat, the energy, the ethnic flavor, the hip-hop style and the fun of a vibrant,What's happening, Man? New York City radiate from here images. Gottfried seems to see everything with a unique vision that captures the spirit, the play, the love, the action, and the energy of those around her. She knows people and they let her in; she's able to share her subject's pleasure and the hidden secrets of their llives in a way that is comlpassionate and revealing. Her pictures give her audience and entree it might not otherwise have into the lives of people it could not otherwise know.

Vivian Cherry 9.18.08

Photographer Vivian Cherry began her career in the 1940's while working as a dancer in Broadway Shows and nightclubs.  Cherry supported herself partly as a darkroom technician for Underwood and Underwood, a prominent photo service to news organizations.  She began shooting the world around her during this time of change. As a street photographer she combined informal portraiture with city scapes of the Lower East Side, the Third Avenue El (and its ensuing demoliton), the streets of Harlem, Hells Kitchen, and the Meat Packing District.  Searching for more skill as a photographer, Cherry joined the Photo League, where she studied with Sid Grossman, who had a profound influence on countless photographers of the 1940s and 1950s. Vivian Cherry's work is in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the International Center of Photography, and the New York Public Library, New York; the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC; Microsoft, Popular Photography, Life, Sports Illustrated, Redbook, and Ebony, as well as the famed magazines of yesteryear: This Week, Pagent, Colliers, Amerika, and Sinclair Oil. She made several short filmls and worked with photgrpher Arnold Eagle as a still photographer on a film about Lee Strasberg and the Lee Strasberg institute.

George Schaub 10.16.08

Our speaker, George Schaub, is the editorial director of Shutterbug magazine. He has taught photography and printing at the New School in NYC since 1986, and also teaches workshops in the US and Abroad. He has reported on the imaging industry since 1984 in magazines such as Popular Photography, Industrial Photography, Popular Mechanics, and Travel & Leisure, and in the New York Times. He has written 20 books on photography, his most current being A Digital Guide to Black and White Landscape Photography.

Jeff Liau 11.20.08

There's a real treat in store for our November meeting. Our principal speaker, Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao is an extraodinary photographer whose credits would require more space than we have available.  Taiwanese-born and educated in the U.S., Jeff is now based in New York City, where he earned an MFA from the School of Visual Arts and BFA from the Pratt Institute. He is the first prize winner of the New York Times "Capture the Times " photo contest. Liao's work has been featured in several solo and group exhibitions, and is represented by private and public collections, including JGS Inc. Foundation, Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Queens Museum of Art in New York, J. Paul Getty Museum, George Eastman House, Norton Museum of Art and Deutsche Bank. His photographs have been widely featured in publications, including Art in America, Art News Camera Art, Photo District News, the New York Times Sunday Magazine, and the village voice. His new Monograph, Habitat 7, is published by Nazraeli Press in 2007. Liao's work is collected in Yeshiva University, Museum of Fine Art, Houston, Howard Stein Collection, Kodak George Eastman House, Deutsche Bank, and Norton Museum of Art.

Harvey Stein 3.19.09

Harvey Stein, speaker for our March Luncheon Meeting, is a professional photographer, teacher, lecturer, author, and curator based in New York City. He currently teachers at the International Center of Photography and in the Master of Professional Studies Program in Digital Photography at the School of Visual Arts.  Stein is a frequent lecturer on photography both in the United States and abroad.  He has also been a member of the faculty of the New School University, Drew Unitversity, the Rochester Institute of Technology and at the University of Bridgeport and is the recepient of a number of major fellowships and artist in residency grants.  His first of many books was published in 1978; his newest tome Movimento: Glimpses of Italian Street Life, was published in December of 2006 by Gangemi Editore (Rome). Stein's photographs and portfolios have been published in numerous newspapers, periodicals, and all the major photo magazines.

Stein's photographs have been wideely exhibited in the United States and Europe with 71 one -person and 135 group shows to date. He has also curated over a dozen exhibits, and his photographs are in more thtn 50 permanent collections. Online, Stein's work can be seen on his web site, www.harveystein.com and at: www.junebateman.com, www.brucesilverstein.com, www.maryannfahey.com, and www.forrestscottgallerey.com.

Peter Stein 4/16/09

      Fred Stein, a pioneer of the hand held camera and renowned photo journalist, died in 1967 at the young age of 58. His work will be shown and discussed at our April 16th luncheon meeting by his son, Peter Stein, ASC, a cinematogrpher and devotee of his dad's work and accomplishments.
Displaced from Germany by the Nazis, Fred Stein found himself in an atmosphere of artistic ferment in pre-war Paris. Young and idealsitic, he was a pioneer of the hand-held camera, taking his Leica into the streets to capture scenes of life with a fresh naturalness. He was fascinated with people in all their diversity, from the very fashionable to the suffering poor.  His photographs often touch on the cruelty and injustice of the existing social order, and just as often revel in the elegance of a patrician figure.  Above all, his sense of beauty and sophisticated composition shine through and elevate the everyday moment.  His portraits of intellectuals, artists, and statesmen reveal the unique character of the men and women who shaped the political and cultural events of the  20th century.  Stein, whose works were recentlly on exhibtion at the International Center of Photography, is represented in the collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, the ICP, the Center for Creative Photography, the Musee Carnavalet (Paris) and museums, galleries, and private collections around the world.

A Freelance photographer who works regularly on assignment for magazines such as National Geographic Traveler, Smithsonian  and Islands, Bob Krist has traveled to all seven continents on assignments and has won awards in the Pictures of the Year, Communication Arts, and the World Press Photo competitions. He has been stranded on a glacier in Iceland, nearly run down by charging bulls in southern India and Knighted by a cutlass during a Trinidad Voodoo ceremony, and consequently won the title of " Travel Photography of the year" from the Society of American Travel Writers in 1994, 2007 and again this year In 2000 his work was honored at the Eisenstadt Awards for Magazine Photography in New York City. Bobs Books Include "In Tuscany" ( Broadway Books , NY ) which features 270 pages of his photographs of the region and is a collaboration with author " Frances Mayes . It spent a month on the New York Times Bestseller list. He also photographed  the coffee table books " Carribean" and the " Portrait of the Carribean" and "Low Country: Charleston to Savannah" ( Graphic Arts Center Publishing), A Photo tour of New York ( Photo Secrets Publihing, San Diego), and Impressions of Buck County ( Old Mill Productions , New Hope PA. ) . An Accomplished writer as well as photographer, Bob is a contributing editorat both National Geographic Traveler and Outdoor Photographer, where he writes a travel photography column, His how-to book "Spirit of Place: The Art of The Traveling Photographer" ( Amphoto Books, NY) was hailed By American Photographer Magazine  as "the best book about travel photography we've ever read".  His newest book "Travel Photography: Documenting the Worlds People and Places " was recently published in the Digital Masters Series by Lark Books

Stephen Mallon 2/18/10

How does a two-time "Lucy winner for Industrial Photography" start? In a sandbox of course.

    As a kid Stephen Mallon was fascinated by bulldozers and dumptrucks, the kind that spilled sand between your toes . As he got older he'd watch earth-movers and front-loaders at airports and construction sites. When he was 10 he got a Kodak instamatic, then a Kodak disc camera, A Canon AE-1, eventually after college, a Rolleiflex, a Hasselblad,and a Toyo, and finally a Canon digital . All the while capturing what he saw, the intricate, powerful machines men used .

    In New York he spent 4 years as an assistant to other photographers like Timothy  Greenfield-Sanders, Mark Seliger, Hashi and many others doing Portraits, Fashion, Commercials, but not much industry. In 2000 he had enough clients to go out on his own, always gravitating towards that childhood fascination with industry.

     You might say he made his "bones" with the crash of Flight #1549 in the Hudson River. note the front cover, the plane suspended like a frozen humming bird. His images resulted in  "Brace For Impact, the Aftermath of Flight 1549" exhibited in numerous solo shows as well as Vanity Fair, NBC , New York Magazine , MSNBC, CBS News , and many others.

    An ongoing project is "American Reclamation" the recyling culture and industry in America. Not an expose of the world of waste , but an optimistic celebration of innovation in the unpublicized worlds of salvage. Stephen is a former President of ASMP NY.

Arnold Crane 11/19/09

Like Charles Ives , The American Composer who supported himself as an insurance executive, Arnold Crane spent 27 years as a trial lawyer supporting his love of photography, He worked as a soda jerk in his fathers pharmacy while going to Law school and sold pictures to the Chicago newspapers and National magazines : funerals , murders ,accidents, fires and 600 weddings on the side .What had started out as a childhood fascination with a hand-cranked Pathe movie Camera turned into an abiding love of photography and photographers.
    In 1995 Arnolds book  " On the Other Side of the Camera"was published after years of chasing an elusive breed, the great photographers of the twentieth century. Among them , Bernice Abbott, Bill Brandt, Walker Evans, Andre Kertesz, Eugene Smith,Edward Steichen, Paul Strand,Imogen Cunningham and many others. The only two who eluded him were Henri Cartier-Bresson and Margaret Bourke-White, overtaken by Parkinson's disease. His picture of Man Ray sticking his tongue out is a classic.
     Among Arnold's personal projects were female nudes he called Landscapes of the female body" He still has every camera he has ever owned . The transition to digital was difficult. His memory for explicit settings is not easy. He needs a checklist. Regarding the current state of photography, "You can't miss with the point and shoots. Everybody is a photographer, the only thing needed is an eye".  Arnolds next dream project is the Marine Corp, He has a letter from  the commanding general for total access. After the great photographers of the century, That should be a cinch.
   Arnold Crane will be flying into New York from Chicago to speak at our November Meeting.