Charles Hahn: Blog https://hahnphoto.net/blog en-us (C) Charles Hahn [email protected] (Charles Hahn) Wed, 23 Oct 2024 14:36:00 GMT Wed, 23 Oct 2024 14:36:00 GMT https://hahnphoto.net/img/s/v-12/u157966359-o195092536-50.jpg Charles Hahn: Blog https://hahnphoto.net/blog 103 120 Suzanne Stein https://hahnphoto.net/blog/2024/7/suzanne-stein  

Suzanne Stein

Suzanne Stein by Charles Hahn

 

Suzanne Stein is a social documentary/street photographer currently living in Philadelphia.  Suzanne frequently photographs the absolute chaos, madness, and lawlessness of the Kensington Avenue area of Philadelphia.  Kensington is a place of homelessness and despair. It is considered one of the worst neighborhoods in the country.  It is a place where prostitutes, drug dealers, and users meet to share a common border with civil society.   Many of the laws of our society have been replaced with the protocols set up by the infrastructure of the neighborhood.  Woven into this neighborhood are families with children who go about their daily routines of work and school. 

 

According to suzannesteinphoto.com, “I think of myself as a social realist and feel driven to present life as I see it unfold.  I feel very strongly that, as a photographer, it is vital to photograph everything in my sphere as honestly as possible.”

The Kensington neighborhood is hard to explain to someone who has not been there.  Prostitutes walk the streets hoping to make enough money for their next score of drugs. Multiple drug dealers sell their products on street corners to users and addicts. One of the drugs sold is Xylazine (an animal tranquilizer) or tranq as it is commonly referred to.  For an addict, a reaction to tranq can be a zombie-like effect which can last for hours.    One of the terms used in the area is Kensington yoga.  A user under the influence of tranq has the ability to maintain their balance.  The drug does not affect the user’s equilibrium as he slumps to various concocted positions and appears to be under a deep hypnotic paralysis.  

The Kensington area as a whole is a disturbing sight. As I visit this neighborhood for the first time, I have an overwhelming feeling that a bomb had gone off and this is what is left.  

The city of Philadelphia vowed to clean up the area and disposed of the main tent city running along the sidewalks of Kensington Avenue.  However, it merely created a dispersion of the tents to the side streets of the neighborhood which produced more confusion.  Many cops are present, but only to move people from one area of the street to another.  They are prepared with Narcan (Naloxone), a medication used to reverse or reduce the effects of opioids.  Narcan in commonly used to restore breathing after an opioid overdose. 

 

Suzanne goes on to say, “I feel that is it imperative to photograph everything, and I include in my images of the street, subject matter which is at times hard to look at.”

 


Photo taken by Suzanne

Philadelphia, PA.

Friday July 5, 2024

1:30 pm.

 

           

Suzanne and I met up at about 1:30 pm outside my hotel at Broad Street and Fairmount Avenue in the Allegheny West neighborhood of Philadelphia.  Before heading to Kensington Avenue, we walked around to shoot photographs and talk about all things to do with photography.

 

 

At what time did it click in that photography was something you wanted to do?

 

I took a trip to Europe with my son in 2015.  It was a trip we saved for, for a very long time.   I was an artist and I would draw.  We went to Belgium and I started taking iPhone pictures, and I thought they were pretty good.  They were just like travel pictures, but then I found myself taking photos of people in Bologna, Italy.   I was taking pictures of people on the street.  I didn’t really know what I was doing.  It was kind of like Helen Keller and discovering something.  I googled street photography, literally turned a corner, and I was struck by the light - like I died and my entire life changed.  I was trying to do street photography with this iPhone.  I had an eye.  The pictures weren’t very good compared to how they are now.

 

            The first camera I got was a Fujifilm digital.  I didn’t really understand the term F-stop until a couple years in.  I felt like I was just somebody’s mom, and I got really good pretty fast.  I kind of had to wade through a lot of condescending camera shop guys.  I was just super dedicated right away, and I discovered Los Angeles and Skid Row and that’s really what I wanted to document.  I was extremely motivated after I went to Skid Row.  I was really driven by what I saw.

I would say that when I started, I advanced compositionally very quickly, which is not uncommon with photographers who have an additional gift.

 

            Did you study any photographers?

 

            I never studied anyone.  My father was an amateur war historian, and I grew up seeing old black and white photos of WWII.  Of German concentration camps.  Of the photography of Roman Vishniac.  When I was a young teenager, I had seen W. Eugene Smith’s Minamanta: The Story of the Poisoning of a City, and of the People Who Chose to Carry the Burdon of Courage.  The work Smith did was very much on my mind for years.

            Also, some of the work Woody Allen did in black and white like Broadway Danny Rose.  Allen’s use of characters, and how to frame a picture.  With Woody Allen I saw the work, the narrative, the message, the context. 

What lenses do you use?

If I’m shooting street photography, I’ll always have a wide angle like a 25mm.  That’s my lens of choice if I only had one lens.  I’ll do some phases with focal length and I’ll always have a 24mm or 25mm.  I’ll also have a 50mm, 135mm, or a 90mm.  I like to use the Leica Q3 camera if I can carry it, depending on where I’m working.

 

 

Going into the Kensington neighborhood to shoot street photography you must be very careful exposing your equipment.  Can you speak about those safety issues.

 

In Kensington, I use my car and very rarely walk the streets.  That would be suicide.  I’m 5’4” and I don’t carry a weapon. I just can’t do that.  Skid Row in L.A. is much safer than Kensington Avenue.  On Skid Row I might carry a wide-angle lens and I’ll carry a portrait lens.  I would not carry my Leica on Skid Row.  I would only carry the Leica camera when I have a reasonable assumption of safety.  Kensington Avenue is where a lot of photographers go, and they’ll take the pictures and pay the person.  That’s no way to do a portrait of the neighborhood.  You have to have a car. it’s not safe any other way. You can’t walk. As a street photographer, I would walk for my photographs; however, to photograph Kensington Avenue you have to have a car. 

 

Suzanne shooting photos in the Kensington Avenue area of Philadelphia.  

Photo by Charles Hahn

 

 

Can you talk about how you shot street photographs at the start of your career, compared to how you adapted your style? How did you build your courage up?

 

 

I always had a lot of courage more than most people doing this.  I was coming at this as a single parent who had to claw her way through raising my son on my own with a lot of challenges. I came into this as an independent thinker.   When I started shooting photos on Skid Row in Los Angeles, I was terrified.  But, I had it in my mind that there were certain places I wanted to photograph, and I was desperate to do it.  I would literally stand on a street corner a few blocks away from where I wanted to be.  I would stare at where I wanted to be, and it took a while to get myself able to go and walk over to do it.  Once I broke through my fear on Skid Row, I discovered that I had to learn how to talk to people.

 

Photo by Suzanne Stein

 

I would say, I think a lot faster now than I did before.  I can look at a scene and would know what focal length I would use right away.  I might have a few options in my mind.  I always had a picture in my mind of what I wanted.  Sometimes I just get a feeling of what I wanted and I would hang around until I got what I wanted.

 

 

 

Does a particular vibe or energy a person on the street gives off have much to do with your shots?

 

You’re exactly right, and that’s how I’ve described it in the past.  Some people have a little bit of electricity about them and while they’re there it makes the scene.  Kind of a charisma or energy they give.  Once that person leaves, it’s over.  A lot of street photography now is driven by a pre-planned notion of a scene.  There are photographers that go to the Brooklyn Bridge on a foggy day and they will get a Brooklyn Bridge on a foggy day picture.  Those photographs are all similar. They all have similar things.  They are pre-planned, and to me it’s kind of canned street photography.

 

 

Photo by Suzanne Stein

 

Would you say photographing people is very difficult to do compared to landscape?

 

They do put people in there (Suzanne says in reference photographers who shoot the Brooklyn Bridge or a foggy day picture), but social media has influenced what the very talented photographers do.  The whole cinematic aesthetic, they’re nice but a derivative of all of each other.  Some of what you see in social media has already been done by other masters of photography.   Social media really encourages that.  That’s why I don’t spend a lot of time looking at what other people are doing.

 

Can you talk about the challenge of putting yourself in front of somebody who may look a bit disheveled?

 

Part of it is how you look.  I try to look very plain. I don’t wear a lot of make-up.  I wear my hair back most of the time.  I look very much the part of where I’m photographing at.

There are certain things that you cannot hide, like my teeth.  I have good teeth and that is something people really notice (if you have white teeth), believe it or not.  I do not do my nails.  There are things that kind of hint people off, so sometimes I’ll try to talk about myself and tell them about my struggles a little bit to make people more comfortable.  In Kensington, I drive a car that looks like I could be a drug dealer or a criminal.  You have to present yourself a certain way.  You also have to have a sense of who is going to attack you and who isn’t.  You have to pay close attention to body language.  There have been times I’ve been at a place where I misjudged and recently that just happened where I got beat up.

I was on Kensington Avenue, and I was photographing a drug dealer’s spot.  I’m now pretty much done, but part of my project is where drug dealers sell their drugs from, and it was the last part of my project.  It was dangerous. I’m not making friends doing it, and I don’t care about going up to people and getting them to trust me and playing the game.  I have to get drug dealers’ permission sometimes, but in order to make a real good portfolio on Kensington, you have to go to spots where they sell drugs from.  It’s very much a part of the landscape.

 

Some of the pictures are still-life like, where there’s nobody in them and they’re not as interesting.  The spots where the drugs are, are interesting because there could be graffiti or writing on the wall.  They’re very particular as drug dealers and you don’t see stuff like this anywhere else. 

 

Most of my shots I’ll do from my car using a 50mm or 70mm focal length which is much tighter than I normally use.  But obviously you’re not going to stand on a corner to shoot.

 

Photo by Suzanne Stein

 

There are different types of pictures I’ve done on those corners.  This particular picture I attempted to shoot has nobody in it.  There was nobody there, but it was atmospheric and rainy.  I really wanted to get it, and I sit in in my car with my window down and set my exposure.  The idea is I’m going to get out of my car and get the picture.  If there were drug dealers in the immediate area I might ask permission.  In this case, there was nobody out.  When I got out of my car to get my shot, I see this guy get out of the building.  There were actually drug dealers in the building I was parked in front of.  He came towards my car and he was a really big guy.  I should have rolled my window up and pulled out.  But I thought I would try to talk to him because I talk to people all the time.  He ran up to my car and he started beating on my car and punching me in the head.  He reached in my car and got my camera from me. 

 

I was trying to get away from him and I turned to car over (started the car) and hit the gas.  I hit a delivery van in from of me as I was trying to get the man (who was leaning into my car) out.  I was injured and pulled my car around, got out of my car, and demanded to get my camera back.  I wasn’t gonna let him have my camera and started screaming, yelling, and cursing at him.  One of the women there started beating me in the head and spit on me.  I was beat but wouldn’t leave.  I said, ‘You’re gonna give me my motherfucking camera back. Give me my fucking camera back, right now.’  These people were horrible, but I wasn’t gonna leave without my camera.  The whole street was against me.  There were roughly thirty people on this street block and 25 were close around me.  I get treated ok and most people know me, but in this part (of Kensington) they don’t really know me and it’s a very bad spot.  Nobody would help me, but I got my fucking camera back, Charlie.  He came back and he threw it at me.  Now I have PTSD.  I went back the next day and I took a picture of the spot, and I went back the day after that and took a picture of it.  I needed to do that.

 

Suzanne Stein on Broad Street in Philadelphia by Charles Hahn

 

 

 

 

How do you get permission to shoot a photo of someone putting a needle in their arm?

 

I don’t very often photograph someone shooting up.  I have a couple pictures of people doing neck shots.  The neck is the last resort for people who have beat-up veins.  There’s a lot of reasons why people do it, but it’s a very different thing that you encounter.  One thing about a neck shot is if the person shooting doesn’t like you, he can miss the vein and make you have a seizure.  They do things like that in Kensington. 

 

Are you working on any books or other publications to show your work?

 

I do.  I need to do a book, but I need a publisher.  I think my work is good enough to find a publisher, and I wouldn’t have to put my own money into it and self-publish my book.

 

Some photographers are very good at marketing, and I’ve been friends with some of them.  They work the algorithms and have marketing people that help them.  It’s all a marketing package.  That’s not me.  I’m out there doing something different, and I can’t package my work.  With the type of work I do, if I package it that way it’ll just look like I’m taking advantage (exploiting the homeless subjects).  It’s more than packaging my pictures. 

If I were to expose my work on social media, there will probably be a lot of copycats and a lot of bullshit.  Photography has been a very difficult place to make a living in.  The people who are succeeding are those guys that are good at marketing themselves.  But they’re not doing anything different.  They don’t push the envelope, and they don’t tell any stories.  They just take the same picture over and over again.

 

I absolutely love taking pictures.  After Kensington, I want to do a project totally different.  I have a lot of beautiful work that gets overshadowed by the rough stuff.   Photography in some respect is not pushing any envelopes anymore.  People are really focused so much on their social media.  They forget that photography is an art, and we’re not supposed to do the same things over and over again. We’re supposed to do things differently and we’re supposed to bring things to light that weren’t there before.  There are photographers looking for that big bang, and it’s hurting photography generally.  Now we have AI to contend with. It’s ruining photography.  Photographers who are heavy into social media marketing will have to worry the most because people will try to copy that stuff with AI.

 

 

 

 

 

KariiKarii Photo by Suzanne Stein

 

 

 

 

The drive around the Kensington Avenue Neighborhood

 

            Suzanne and I walked a couple of short city blocks to her apartment.  There we got into her car for the short ride over to the Kensington Avenue area.

 

            Suzanne was a wealth of information on many topics surrounding the city of Philadelphia and especially Kensington.  She narrates as she drives me through.

 

Suzanne:         We are on Frankfort Avenue which is another main thoroughfare through Kensington.  When I first started here a year and a half ago it was a big drug street.  It was very dangerous here.  It was really bad and they (the city) cleaned them out.

 

The introduction to the streets of (the drug) Xylazine, otherwise known as tranq, changed the dynamic of Kensington.  The addicts are really zombie-like in a lot of ways.  Tranq combined with fentanyl is used.  Now they have what they call rhino-tranq, which is xylazine with a mixture of Medetomidine, but used for larger animals.  [It’s} so powerful you can’t even revive the users with Narcan when they over-dose. 

 

            There’s only so badly you can feel for a lot of these people because they do really bad things to each other and the neighborhood. 

 

            There’s a narrative that people want you to peddle about the victimhood of the sufferers of drug addiction on the street.  But it’s a very small and particular population that actually winds up on the street here (on Kensington).

 

            At times it is difficult to talk about a pregnant woman on the street who is trying to live and exist.  When on the other side of it, she is a serious fucking thief.  She robs old ladies in a Walmart. 

 

            We are now on Lehigh Street, and once we cross Lehigh, we will be in Kensington.  This used to be lined with tents.  All of this and I photographed all through here.  I have pictures of them sitting in shock looking at me.  I pulled up in my car and shot the picture, and I let them see me doing it. 

 

I want them looking at the camera.  There’s no other way to do it.  I have to photograph the corners of Kensington or I can’t say I did the whole thing.  That’s what people do: they take pictures of the addicts.  Tell their story, but they don’t talk about the drug lords?  How can they fucking do that?  So, I do it the only way you can do it.  I roll up, take the picture and basically – fuck you.  I can’t go to certain spots, but a lot of those people are gone now.

 

 

            We’re now on Summerset Street which a very fucked up street.  They’re trying to clean it out. We’re headed right onto Kensington Avenue now and you’ll start to see guys selling drugs in the open.  It depends on the day and the police activity.  There’s a lot of factors that affect whether or not they’re selling drugs at any given time. 

 

 

I got beat right around here (on Kensington).  They say they’re trying to have more police activity, but I don’t see it. 

 

            I had a couple of drug dealers try to get me (beat up) in my car right here.  When I started photographing here a couple of years ago, I found it endlessly fascinating.  I would see writing (graffiti) in different places.

 

 

There are a couple of cops over there, but they need to have a larger presence.   They need to work on these goddamn drug dealers.   Right along here (Suzanne points to an area on Kensington Avenue) there used to be dozens and dozens of addicts.  They called it Kensington Beach. I’ve photographed there a bunch of times.  Usually, the drug dealers are on one side (of the street) and the addicts on the other.

 

 

 

My photo in front of a convenient store.

 

 

 

 

            This is Allegheny Street.  K and A (Kensington Avenue and Allegheny Street) is a famous intersection.  Some of the addicts are homeless and some aren’t.  They could have a room somewhere or they could come from the suburbs.

 

  

            See that guy right there (Suzanne points to a disheveled man walking along), that’s bud, he’s a neck shooter.  That’s the guy in one of my photos shooting into the neck of his girlfriend under the American flag.  He was supposed to get clean.  He got off the street.  Somebody came and got him and he went into rehab.  His family took all these pictures, took him out to dinner.  It was all a big deal.  He left a few days later and his girlfriend who had been clean for months and months stole her sponsors car to come down here.  That is her in the wheelchair (Suzanne suddenly recognizes the girlfriend sitting in a wheelchair with other addicts on a busy street corner adjacent to Ruth Street).  She was supposed to go to school and totally threw away that chance.

 

 

 

Photo by Suzanne Stein

 

 

 

 

 

            There’s a lot of cool still-life photos you can get here.  I love the writing (graffiti).

 

            There are some dealers standing inside that convenient store (Suzanne points) and that’s what they do.  The question is, are the convenient store operators complicit or are they being held hostage?  The drug dealing situation is off the hook.

 

I would come here every single day to shoot photos.  Every once in a while, I would take a break and go to the gym.  It takes a lot of dedication to do this because you’re getting out of the car and you have to talk to people that would want to rob you, beat your ass, or stab you with a needle. 

 

 

            An out-reach worker was recently stabbed with a needle full of blood, and she was out there trying to help people.  Now, she’s completely traumatized.  She has to go on an Aids-treatment protocol for a month.  She got stabbed by somebody who’s a regular there and I have actually photographed.

 

            Look at that woman walking along (Suzanne points).  Look at her legs.  Look at her body.  She’s a young woman and she doesn’t look right.  Her face is stiff and her body is shaped wrong.  If you look at some of their faces, you see the drug is affecting their cartilage and their collagen.  These people are very young but they look very old.

 

 

 

            There’s a great picture right there.  Look at that, look at that, look at that! I have to get that (photograph).  I have to fucking get that.  I’m gonna come back and do that (drive around the block and photograph the scene).  See! (Suzanne speaks loudly).  This is what happens.  I stay the fuck out of here and everyone tells me, ‘Don’t go back. They’re gonna kill you.  Don’t go back.’  I come back, just to roll you through, and boom, I’m back in it

 

 

Nobody cares whether I do this or not.  I’m taking pictures that nobody else has ever done.  How many fucking people have taken pictures of the Brooklyn bridge during a rain storm?  They put their stuff on Instagram and everyone else does that too.  Nobody has ever done this (documenting Kensington the way Suzanne has), and I can’t get as many eyes on this project.  So maybe when I’m dead (Suzanne jokes).

 

 

Keep your window up.  People will shoot you with pepper spray.  They can sneak up to you on a scooter.  The dealers have things well planned out where they’ll have a look-out and many times they’re on a scooter.

 

I’m not going to be getting out of my car to ask people to take their picture unless I see somebody with the tranq wounds and the bandaging.  That is very, very compelling and I’ll photograph it.  But I have to be so careful that someone will say, ‘You’re that bitch that took a picture of my man when he was selling.’  It’s just that bad.    A lot of the people who do have a problem with me; In five or six months they won’t even be here.  They’ll either be dead or in jail.

 

 

 

Photographing here has to be done artfully and you have to have something narrative in the picture. 

 

 

Suzanne shooting graffiti.  Photo by Charles Hahn

 

 

 

 

This is a very interesting area, and these drug dealers are all Hispanic (Suzanne turns off of Kensington Avenue and onto a narrow side street).  I’m told the cartels run these streets.  They run the whole deal here with drugs.  I didn’t know that until recently.  But it does explain some stuff.  They found a dead guy about three weeks ago without his hands.  He was a white guy, a user who apparently did something to bother these dealers.  They killed him and cut his hands off.  The cops were down here and it was a crime scene, but nobody reported it in the local media. 

 

 

You could roll through, get out of the car to take some pictures, and smell something really bad like something died.  You don’t know if it’s somebody’s dog or some girl.  There are terrible things that happen here that are secrets.

 

There are so many missing people here in Kensington.  There are people who disappear all the time.  You see them and see them and then they’re gone.  Some went to jail and some were murdered.  Family members will post on Facebook: lost in Kensington, etc.

 

My photo of Suzanne photographing in Kensington
 

 

 

 

After the daylong adventure with Suzanne, we part ways and head off to our individual worlds. Back to civilization. 

 

 

Selfie by Suzanne

 

My photo of a building in Kensington

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[email protected] (Charles Hahn) https://hahnphoto.net/blog/2024/7/suzanne-stein Wed, 24 Jul 2024 12:46:29 GMT
Joni Sternbach https://hahnphoto.net/blog/2024/7/joni-sternbach Joni Sternbach

Joni Sternbach at her Brooklyn studio, by Charles Hahn


Joni Sternbach is photographer who specializes in the painstaking process of tintype photography.  Joni was born in the Yonkers, New York and holds an MA in photography from the New York University/International Center of Photography and a BFA from the School of Visual Arts.  She has taught photography at NYU and currently teaches at the Penumbra Foundation.

Through the window of a view box camera, Joni Sternbach has formed a love and a passion for the challenging wet plate process of photography.  She has spent much of her professional life photographing surfers on the beaches around the world including Australia, England, California, New York, and Rhode Island.  In doing so, she has endured many challenges and difficulties that wet plate imposes upon a photographer.

 

Joni has authored several books including Surfboard, Surf Site Tintype, and Surfland.  

   

Thursday, May 16, 2024
Brooklyn, New York
11:00 am


Cheri, my assistant, and I arrived at Joni’s studio in Brooklyn after a 40-minute Uber ride from our hotel in the Gramercy district of Manhattan.  With four bags of camera equipment, we approach an older white building which resembles a revived warehouse.  

I pushed the button to the right of the door and Joni’s voice came over the intercom with instructions to find her studio.

Joni greeted us at the studio door and we exchanged pleasantries.  Joni has a pleasant voice and a calming demeaner.  She is an attractive lady of 71 years of age, with short, light, almost white hair.  She wore a pair of Zyl-framed glasses that she frequently removed before I photographed her.  

Her studio is spacious.  It is a large, open room with many windows allowing soft light to bounce off its white walls which created a kind of artistic aesthetic.  Tables were uncluttered, and a few had large, antique view cameras sitting on them looking as if they were ageless trophies from the early 1900s.


Joni started her photography career shooting film, but after discovering the wet-plate process, she took a workshop given by John Coffer in 1999.  John Coffer is considered a pioneer in the revival of the wet plate process invented by Englishman Frederick Scott Archer in 1851.  The process was valued for the high level of detail and clarity it allowed.  It was used by Mathew Brady whose Civil War era photographs are iconic images found across American museums today.  


At the Start

 

At the beginning of your interest in photography, who were some of the photographers you admired?


In the early days there was Diane Arbus, Robert Frank, and Gary Winograd.  Those were the people whose work I loved.  Later on, I became more aware of Lee Friedlander and Bill Cunningham.


Wet plate really changed me in 1999 as the idea of making a unique object as a photograph was very appealing to me because it was all about multiples.  Here was an opportunity to have an object which you could hold in your hands and had so much appeal.  On glass or metal or whatever.  That’s kind of what changed things for me and then I started looking into. 


As a youth, when did you start getting interested in photography and when did it click into your brain that photography was your passion?


I was a fine arts major at the School of the Arts, and they required that I take a photography class.  I really enjoyed it the first year, so I took it again the second year.  By the third year, I transferred to the photo department.  That’s when I became passionate about it, and I was like twenty years old.  That’s where I’ve been ever since – with photography.

From there I got my first job working at Sotheby’s’.  Got my second job working as a professional printer.  I went back to grad school and then started teaching photography.  I’ve always been interested in alternative processes and taught it at NYU.  When I had the opportunity to learn wet plate, I did that.  Wet plate was much harder thing.  Not a lot of people were doing it and I didn’t really have a place to do it.  You need outdoor, dedicated space so you don’t contaminate your whole life.

From there I got my first job working at Sotheby’s.  Got my second job working as a professional printer.  I went back to grad school and then started teaching photography.  I’ve always been interested in alternative processes and taught it at NYU.  When I had the opportunity to learn wet plate, I did that.  Wet plate was a much harder thing.  Not a lot of people were doing it, and I didn’t really have a place to do it.  You need outdoor, dedicated space so you don’t contaminate your whole life.

 

 

Wet plate or tintype imaging is a very difficult process to follow.  It requires an incredible amount of dedication, but the rewards are detailed images that can be easily identifiable from today’s digital world.  

 

The Wet Plate Process


According to www.britannica.com/technology/wet-collodion: “The process involved adding a soluble iodide to a solution of collodion (cellulose nitrate) and coating a glass plate with the mixture.  In the darkroom the plate was immersed in a solution of silver nitrate to form silver iodide.  The plate, still wet, was exposed in the camera.  It was then developed by pouring a solution of pyrogallic acid over it and was fixed with a strong solution of sodium thiosulfate, for which potassium cyanide was later substituted.  Immediate developing and fixing were necessary because, after the collodion film had dried, it became waterproof and the reagent solutions could not penetrate it.”

Later, a plate of tin was substituted for glass and the process was called a tintype.

One mistake or mis-step in the process can alter or even ruin the tintype photograph.  Some modern-day, wet plate photographers believe some mistakes can be good ones and add a certain aesthetic to the image.

John Coffer still conducts his Camp Tintype workshops in the town of Dundee, located in the Finger Lakes district of New York state.

 Joni Sternbach: Her Wave | MONOVISIONS - Black & White Photography Magazine
Joni's photo of Miss Moss


As I look through your book, Surf Site Tin Type, your photographs are wonderful with a lot of hard work on your part.  How did wet plate photography start for you?


I first learned wet plate from John Coffer.  We went up there (Dundee, New York) in 1999.  I had no idea what I was doing when I went up there.  It was quite an experience.  It’s very hard to remember all the steps from one time to the next if you’re not doing it regularly.  It needs to be ingrained into your brain.  At first, I was doing it once every few months because I didn’t know what I was doing and I was terrified of the chemicals.  But once you get into the groove and you have yourself well set-up, it flows much better.

 
Joni’s photo of Ed


Your project has taken you to Australia, England, California, New York, and Rhode Island?

Yeah, and since then I’ve gone to other places as well.

 

Have you had any issues with equipment as far as packaging it up and securing it for the long travel?

 

Not issues.  You cannot take the chemistry with you wherever you go.  You can only go to where you can get the chemistry.  Or, from someone who is living there has figured out how to get the chemistry.  That was what I was up against when I was in Uruguay and Australia.  You need to connect with the right people, and it can be much easier to connect with the right people through social media.

 

I’m sure you had everything well set up before you left home.


I did have one trip abroad which was a disaster, partly because of the chemicals, but I’m not really sure exactly what went wrong.  Troubleshooting is hard, especially in another language.  That was much earlier in my career.


Swirling Bokeh Effect

As I look through your book, I come across a few wet plate images that displays some interesting swirling bokeh (the effect of a soft out-of-focus background).


Joni’s photo of Dave showing a swirling bokeh

 

I used a Petzval lens for those.  Normally I cannot use a Petzval lens because I use a lens for the shutter.


There’s a lot that goes on with making a portrait, especially on the beach with subjects who are constantly in motion.  I only pulled out the Petzval for certain pictures.  Usually, I just work with the normal lens.


The Petzval lens does not have the capability of a short shutter speed to stop motion.  Therefore, the photographer would take the lens cap off, count in seconds, and replace the lens cap.  The shutter speeds are very slow, and consequently there is more chance of subjects moving creating motion artifacts which are not usually desired.


 
Photographing Joni at her studio, photo by Cheri Swanson


The photographs need to be totally developed while the plate was still wet which allowed you roughly 15 minutes after the collodion was poured on the plate.  The best developing temperature is 68 degrees.  But you also had other issues to deal with as like wind and the sand.  What were some of the issues that were difficult for you using a portable darkroom box on the beach? 


The wind was the biggest issue.  I didn’t really work in the hottest heat.  I did in Australia.  I pretty much made sure I had shade covering me.  You don’t want the dark box being slammed by the sun.  I’d say the biggest issue was the sand.  The dark box is on the table and I’m sitting on something to develop it.  Sand shouldn’t get in the dark box, but one time I did have a big wind come in and lifted my dark box up and take the silver tank and toss the whole thing on the sand.  But I learned from that experience, and I made sure I didn’t put the opening part of the dark box into the wind.  I just became a lot more cautious about the weather.  


After a plate was shot, developed, and dried, it would need to be varnished.  The varnish would protect the image on the plate from UV light, which would fade out the image through time.  What was your process of varnishing the plates?


I didn’t varnish the plates in the field.  I carried them back with me to my studio and I varnished them there.

 
Joni Sternbach at her Brooklyn studio, by Charles Hahn

 

 

 

 

What was the process of setting up your subjects to be photographed?

 


I’m not a surfer, so I’m not really that hip to some of the possess.  I had to learn to what hip ways the surfers held their boards, how they were comfortable while I shot the picture or while I coated the plate, the whole thing.  It was a big learning experience and a big collaboration to be honest.  At first, I tried to direct them, and then I realized I was better off letting them direct me (Joni laughs) and we learned from each other.  Sometimes I had people lined up, and during that time I could see how they were just hanging out.   I was trying to pay attention to them even though I was working with someone else.  In a sense, that was an influence as to how their picture was taken.  


Having the camera set up with the dark box in the back attracted the surfers.  It was a conversation starter and it was a community builder.  I never thought my work would build a community, but it did seem to. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Joni and Jimmy, photo credit: Eric Taubman

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Mermaids 


On page 55 of Surf Site Tin Type, there is a photograph entitled The Mers where there is a couple lying on the beach with mermaid tails on their legs.  Can you talk about this couple and how the photo came to be?

Joni’s The Mers photo

 


I was in Australia when the people who were hosting me asked, ‘who do you want to photograph?’  I asked, ‘who is there? - totally spoken by a non-surfer (Joni laughs).’
How about a mermaid?’  ‘There’s a mermaid?  What does that mean?’  ‘She is somebody who has mermaid tails, she teaches young girls to swim like mermaids.’ 

I was in Australia when the people who were hosting me asked, ‘Who do you want to photograph?’  I asked, ‘Who is there? - totally spoken by a non-surfer,’ (Joni laughs).
‘How about a mermaid?’  ‘There’s a mermaid?  What does that mean?’  ‘She is somebody who has mermaid tails. She teaches young girls to swim like mermaids.’ 

mermaid swimming thing, but you know it’s Australia, it’s not the United States.  She has a separate life as a mermaid.

First, I photographed her by herself, and then I photographed her with her partner.  They posed the picture.  I did not know how to pose them (Joni laughs).  They already knew how to pose.  She was just a gorgeous, wonderful woman, and she works for (musician) Jack Johnson when he goes on tour.  They are just lovely people, and I didn’t know anything about this mermaid swimming thing, but you know it’s Australia; it’s not the United States.  She has a separate life as a mermaid.

 


When you travel, do you mostly shoot 8” x 10” plates?


Yes, when I travel, I shoot 8” x 10” plates.  I have shot larger plates, but when I shoot more locally.  I haven’t traveled with larger plates at this point.

 

 


Typically, what is your camera of choice?


I have a studio camera in my studio which I use.  But when I travel, I take the Deardorf camera because it comes in a rolling case and it folds up.  I use different cameras for different things.

I don’t have a size I love to shoot in.  I gear my film around a project that I’m interested in doing and what camera and what film and what output do I want to keep this project in.  So, first I conceptualize the project, and then I work accordingly.  I do shoot landscapes.  I shoot them in 4” x 5”, 5” x 7”, and 8” x 10”.  It depends on what the project is and how far I’m traveling.  I don’t travel with an 8” x 10” for landscapes; I usually shoot with a 4” x 5”, or even a 35mm Leica in black and white film.  It really depends on what the story is.  I first learned photography at the School of Visual Arts in New York City where we photographed on the street.  Those are my roots.


I did a body of work in platinum in an attempt to get the tonal range that everyone is after.  I did work of the study of the human figure and motion but with more of a feminist bend on it.  I was interested in how you can look at my process and be influenced by it and sort of make new things that remind you of the past that are not old or very contemporary.

Currently Joni Sternbach’s books can be found on amazon.com.  Or, check her out at jonisternbach.com.

 

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[email protected] (Charles Hahn) https://hahnphoto.net/blog/2024/7/joni-sternbach Sun, 07 Jul 2024 08:42:20 GMT
Neil Leifer https://hahnphoto.net/blog/2024/6/neil-leifer Neil Leifer

Neil Leifer Friday May 17, 2024.

 

 

“It takes a good photographer to get in the right spot and a great one doesn’t miss.”, Neil Leifer

 

 

 

     Neil Leifer, whose career spans over 60 years, has photographed many historical events and famous people for Life, Time, People and Sports Illustrated magazines. 

 

     Those who Neil has photographed include Mohammad Ali, Joe Namath, Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio, Fidel Castro, Charles Manson, Ronald Reagan, and the racehorse Secretariat.  He has shot over 200 magazine covers.  His photographs impacted the history of American pop-culture, as described in his latest book, Relentless: The Stories behind the Photographs.

 

 

     Other books authored by Neil include Guts and Glory: The Golden Age of American Football 1958-1978; Neil Leifer’s Sports Stars; Sports; The Best of Neil Leifer; Neil Leifer: Ballet in the Dirt: The Golden Age of Baseball and Boxing.

 

 

     According to Neil’s Relentless: The Stories behind the Photographs, Bob Costas said, “If you are a sports fan, Neil Liefer’s pictures have been shaping your impressions and memories for five decades.”  Frank Deford, Sports Illustrated writer said, “He’s one of the best photographers of our time. Maybe, in fact, Neil is the very best.  Certainly, the most creative.”

 

Neil’s first Sports Illustrated cover

  October 1, 1961.

 

 

 

At the Beginning

Neil Leifer caught the photography bug while growing up in the Lower East Side neighborhood of Manhattan.  As a teenager, his adventure into photography started while using a Brownie Hawkeye camera and joining the photography club at the Henry Street Settlement house in his neighborhood.

 

            In the late 1950s Neil, a huge sports fan, loved the New York Giants Football team and players such as Frank Gifford, Charley Conerly, Sam Huff, and Alex Webster.  Neil could not afford a ticket to the Giants’ games.  So, as luck would have it, Neil (17 years old) heard about a volunteer program where he would be able to get into the games for free if he pushed a wheelchair containing a war veteran. One stipulation of the job was that he would end up at the back of one of the endzones.

 

On a cold and foggy afternoon, December 28, 1958, the Giants hosted the Baltimore Colts for the National Football League Championship game at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx.  Luck once again struck Neil as he carried his Yashica twin-lens reflex camera under his overcoat into the game.  Neil stood patiently with his war veteran in the far endzone.  The game came into sudden-death overtime, and the Colts, led by Johnny Unitas, marched down the field towards the endzone where Neil was.  It was later in the afternoon and fog settled over the darkening field when Unitas handed the ball off to Allen Ameche who crossed over the goal line giving the Colts the NFL World Championship. During this winning play, Neil took out his camera and shot a historical photograph of Ameche’s touchdown run.  No other photographer was at that position to get such a great photo.  It just so happened that this took place on Neil’s 18th birthday.

 

Neil knew he had something special. The following day he took his photos to the Sports Illustrated magazine department in New York City and showed the editors his prize from the game.  Although impressed, they apologized and said, ‘It was too late to add anything more into that edition of the magazine.’ Neil was undeterred: he subsequently managed to get his photos published on the inside cover of Dell Sports Magazine.  Neil’s career as a professional photographer had begun.

 

Neil’s photograph of Allen Ameche

ContributorContributorFootball: SI photographer Neil Leifer with camera and equipment during Cleveland Browns vs New York Giants game at Cleveland Municipal Stadium.
Cleveland, OH 11/26/1961
MANDATORY CREDIT: John Iacono/Sports Illustrated
SetNumber: X8113 TK1 C7 F4 - D89028

A young Neil Leifer, photo by Johnny Iacono

 

 

 

Friday, May 17, 2024

Andrew Haswell Green Park

New York City

1pm

 

            Our Yellow Cab slowed as it approached the 59th Street bridge along the East River on 1st Avenue.  “This is as far as I can take you to the Park” the Cabbie said to us.  Cheri, my assistant and I fumbled our way out of the backseat of the cab.  “I swear, These Yellow Cabs are getting smaller by the minute,” I said.

 

            Through multiple phone conversations it was agreed we would meet Neil at the Andrew Haswell Green Park at 1pm.  Neil was kind enough to scout out some interesting places for photographs prior to our arrival.  That, plus the fact he lives fairly close by helps a great deal as well.

 

            With four bags of camera equipment Cheri and I walked the needed block and a half toward the East River and under the 59th Street bridge to the park.  From there we search and scout out the best position and background for Neil to be, during our shoot.  Just then my cell phone rings and caller ID says - Neil Leifer calling.  “Hi Neil”, I answer.  “Hi Charlie, Neil says.  “I can see you at the park from my apartment and I’ll be right down.” 

 

 

We chose a wonderful area in the park to photograph Neil with the bridge and the red Roosevelt Island Tram cars passing by overhead.  Standing at the railing by the river, we see Neil with his infectious smile.  Neil appeared to be much younger than his current age of 81, as he walked with an energetic bounce down a small hill towards us.

 

            “How are things in Winston Salem?” Neil asked.  “It’s going well, I replied.  It’s a small University town having Wake Forest there.” “I got an award in Winston Salem a couple of years ago,” Neil Says.  “I got the Roone Arledge award.” The Roone Arledge award is an annual event given by the National Sports Media Association, in Winston Salem, North Carolina.  Neil won the award in 2021.

 

            We talk as I shoot my photographs of Neil.

 

 

One of my many photos of Neil with the 59th Street bridge and the Roosevelt Island Tram in the background.

 

 

Neil, when you were shooting sporting events, either on the sidelines of a football game or ringside of a boxing match, how did you maintain the focus of your camera as the athletes moved around?

 

 

“What has always separated the best sports photographers from the ordinary one is what I like to call hand/eye coordination.  My normal lens was a 400mm to a 600mm for football or baseball or whatever, and in the old days you had to manually focus the lens.  There’s a hand/eye coordination that some of the best had.  Some of the bests were John Diever and Walter Ioos of Sports Illustrated had it.  I was pretty good, but also John Zimmerman just had great hand/eye coordination.  In football it’s easier to focus on the quarterback because you know where he’s going to be.  But, with pass receivers or running backs, once they get the ball you don’t know where they’re going.”

 

Neil explains his unusual gift of quick focusing: “One person is able to take a blank piece of paper and do a beautiful drawing where I can’t.  Or, another person can sit down at a piano and play by ear.  I can’t.  It’s the same thing shooting sports; it’s a hand/eye coordination of sorts.  The best sports photographers always had that good hand/eye coordination – for long lenses

 

 

Back then I used the Canon or Nikon motor drive and would shoot 4 or 5 frames a second.  Today with the Sony mirrorless cameras they shoot 20 frames a second and it helps.  Certainly, shooting the Derby (Neil speaking of his recent trip to photograph the 2024 Kentucky Derby) I took full advantage of that.”

 

 

 

 

            How did it all start for you shooting sports?

 

 

“I was the school newspaper photographer in high school, and I belonged to the photo club at the Henry Street Settlement house in my neighborhood.  They wanted to keep kids off the street.  Not that I was about to become a gang banger or a druggie.  That was a way to keep kids from getting into trouble.”

 

 

Neil’s photograph of Vince Lombardi

 

 

            Much of sports is played in the outside elements where it was common to have moments of darker venues or less sunlight.  Did you have moments of needing to push your film (intentionally underexposing the images by raising your ASA or ISO on the camera) to compensate for the lack of light?

 

 

“Oh, all the time.  By the time I was shooting professionally, I had a darkroom in my basement that my father made for me.  I was and still am a terrible darkroom technician.  I’m sure you worked in the darkroom and it takes patience.  Not one of my virtues.  I was never very good.  I worked for Time magazine, Life magazine and Sports illustrated. I didn’t have time to process film.  You had to air freight your film back.  Time-Life had the best photo lab in the world at the time.  In fact, Popular Photography magazine did a major piece on the Time/Life lab stating this was the state-of-the-art photo lab.  It serviced Life magazine which was a weekly, so was Time magazine and Sports Illustrated.  Eventually People magazine, Fortune magazine, [and] Architectural Forum Digest.  All of that stuff was done in the Time-Life lab.  It was quite a big lab, and you knew there was a professional person printing your pictures as opposed to me doing it.  I just wasn’t very good in the darkroom.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

          You were employed by Life or by Sports Illustrated, was there ever an issue with who owned the rights to your photos?

 

 

            “Yes.  One has to deal with that or negotiate that.  I’ve been very lucky and I’ll leave it there.”

 

According to the website authenticnewsroom.com, “in 2021 Neil eventually sold his prolific collection of photography to ABG (Authentic Brands Group).  Through this partnership, ABG will manage the rights to the entire collection.  ‘I am very proud that my photography collection will be preserved by ABG, a company that values heritage, legacy and art,’” said Neil.

 

 

 

            Do you remember meeting Harry Benson?

 

“We both shot Joe Namath quite a bit.  Harry got Namath to let him shoot him at home.  Namath was suing Time-Life at the time and he didn’t want to pose for any of the magazines at the time.”  

 

 

According to Relentless, “‘Neil,’ Joe Namath said, ‘you’re one of the few photographers that I would say yes to, but it ain’t gonna be for Life Magazine.  I hate Time, Inc.  I don’t care if the Time & Life building burns down.’” 

 

 

“Harry’s magic was getting people to do things they didn’t want to do. I always admired that.  I was a fan of Harry’s back then and we were competitors.  Both of us are very competitive guys.  I never wanted to win or get the cover of a magazine by screwing the other guy.  But I did want to win it by taking the better picture than he did.”

 

 

In the documentary Harry Benson: Shoot First, Benson said, ‘It was touch and go between Life magazine and Sports Illustrated.  Neil Leifer from Sports Illustrated is a friend of mine and I have to beat the bastard,’ Harry laughs.

 

Neil: ‘Joe (Namath) got himself the bachelor pad to end all bachelor pads, and of course he was the most eligible bachelor in America.  I went in to the sports editor at Life. I said, ‘I have a real good relationship with Joe Namath.  I think I could, probably get him to let me photograph this new bachelor pad of his.  John McDermott was the editor at Life at the time, and McDermott said to me,’ ‘If you can do that, you got the assignment.’ 

 

Joe Namath: ‘Neil, there’s no way I’m going to do this. I’d really like to keep that private.  But if I were going to do it, you’d be the guy.’

 

Neil: ‘It’s now about three months later and I walked into the sports department at Life, and there on the wall is this beautiful cover of Joe Namath sitting in an easy chair.  And then I looked at the rest and there’s Joe Namath shooting pool with his pool room and I was speechless.’

 

Joe Namath: ‘It wasn’t my idea it was Harry (Benson) more than anything I promise you.’ 

 

Neil:  ’Joe Namath is at home and the phone rang.’  ‘Who’s this?’ ‘It’s Johnny.’ Who? ‘Johnny Carson.’  Joe, there’s a friend of mine Harry Benson.  He’s a good guy.  I want you to help him.  Neil says, ‘Joe probably made the right move and of course Harry parlayed that not only into this great spread but he ended up doing the pantyhose ad that Joe did later on and I was a fan of Harry’s from that time on.’

 

 

In Neil’s book Relentless, Harry Benson says of Neil: ‘Neil knew how to get the best picture he could possibly get.  And he knew how he was going to kick everyone’s ass.  I love that mentality, I do.  It meant I had to try a bit harder because I didn’t want to beat other photographers.  I wanted to kill them.  This was not a gentle business we were in.  And yes, I wanted to kill Neil too.  I do have to say, though that Neil was the most definitely the best sports photographer of his generation.’

 

One of Neil’s photos of Joe Namath

 

 

Joe Namath said, ‘Neil’s sensational sports photographs have been some of the best I’ve ever seen.’

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mohammad Ali versus Sonny Liston

 

 

Concerning the Mohammad Ali vs Sonny Liston fight and your famous photograph, can you talk me through that experience?  Could you hear Ali yelling at Liston as it was reported?

 

 

 

 

 

Not at all.  Again, remember even with the Twin Lens Rolleiflex ringside with a wide angle, you had to focus.  You had to worry about the referee getting in between you and the fighters.  More importantly, the strobe light, you had a 5 or 6 second lag. You had to wait.  I didn’t hear a thing.  Remember, I was right on the apron.  Liston was lying right here, where you’re sitting – that far away from me.  There could have been no crowd; it wouldn’t have made a bit of difference. You focus on what you’re doing and that’s all.

 

 

With the Rolleiflex I was probably shooting at F5.6 and the speed of the strobe was my shutter speed, but the shutter speed on the camera was set at 1/500 of a second.  The strobe can sync at 1/500 of a second with a Rolleiflex, but the actual speed was the strobe.  I used the Rolleiflex for basketball or hockey when I shot with a strobe.

Neil’s most legendary photograph of Mohammad Ali

knocking out Sonny Liston.

 

 

 

Walter Ioos, Sports Illustrated photographer, said of Neil in the book Relentless: “Ali standing over Liston.  It’s considered the greatest sports picture ever taken.  It replaced maybe Nat Fein’s picture of Babe Ruth retiring, which may have been the best picture of all time.  But Neil has that now.”

 

Neil Leifer is the only photographer inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.

 

My photograph of Neil at the Andrew Haswell Green Park in Manhattan.

 

Neils’ Favorite photograph.

 

 

Favorite photograph

 

Hanging a camera from the rafters of the Houston Astrodome perfectly captures Mohammad Ali’s knockout of Cleveland Williams in 1966.  “After 55-60 years it is my favorite picture.  There is nothing I would change,” Neil said.  He liked this photo so much that it is the only photograph he shot that hangs in his own home.

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

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[email protected] (Charles Hahn) https://hahnphoto.net/blog/2024/6/neil-leifer Fri, 21 Jun 2024 11:09:25 GMT
Bob Gruen in the West Village, NYC https://hahnphoto.net/blog/2024/6/bob-gruen-in-the-west-village-nyc Bob Gruen

Bob Gruen at his New York City studio May 16th 2024.

 

 

Bob Gruen has been a huge contributor of documenting the musicians who, through their art, helped to sculpt the minds and the emotional worlds of teenagers across America and beyond.

For fifty years, Bob Gruen’s photographs have been seen around the globe.  He has authored books including John Lennon: The New York Years; Rock Seen; New York Dolls; Green Day; and Right Place, Right Time: The Life of a Rock and Roll Photographer.

His photographs include musicians; John Lennon, Led Zeppelin, Elton John, The Clash, Sex Pistols, Alice Cooper, Deborah Harry and Tina Turner to name just a small portion of subjects.

According to Right Place, Right Time: The Life of a Rock and Roll Photographer, “Tommy Ramone once said that in order to create a successful rock band, ‘The image and the sound must gel.’  Punk author Legs McNeil (Please Kill Me) concurred, ‘You have to have a great song and you also have to have a great image to go with it.’”  Gruen’s photographs helped create the images of music idols who touched many young souls seeking to connect the dots of their developing youth. 

 

 

 

 

In 1971, Bob met and became John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s personal photographer.  They became friends, and he remained their personal photographer until John’s death on December 8, 1980. According to John Lennon: The New York Years, “Yoko told Bob very directly, ‘We want you to keep coming back, to hang out and take any pictures you want.  We’re not hiring you or paying you because you’ll sell pictures to magazines and make money for your photos.  But we’ll give you access as long as you show us what you do and let us choose which ones you use.’”

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thursday May 16th 2024

West Village, New York City

 

 

Our yellow cab pulled up to the Westbeth Artists’ Housing in the West Village at about 3:20 pm, 10 minutes early from the pre-arranged meeting time of 3:30 pm.  Cheri, my assistant, and I climbed out of the cab with four medium-sized bags of photography equipment. 

The extra 10 minutes gave us a moment to look over the famous structure built in 1898.  Westbeth had housed a number of influential artists and musicians including photographer Diane Arbus whose 1971 suicide in her apartment A945 caused a stir in the community.

The Westbeth Artists Community Building.                       A plaque as seen on the side of the building.

 

We walked along the side of the building and into the entranceway of the Westbeth.  At a desk sat a security guard with a couple of people off to the side talking with one another.  All three looked up as we walked towards them.

 

 

I asked them where to find Bob’s apartment number.  They gave me quick directions which were confusing.  The Westbeth is a difficult place to find your way around as we headed up the elevator to find the apartment.  The elevator doors opened, and we walked out to a dark, gloomy, old and musty hallway.  The place was mystical with the walls and ceiling painted a pale blue gray and a carpet to match.  The lights fixed proportionately along the ceiling cast a dim yellowish hue.  We headed down the hallway and notice the old-style architecture had a kind of aura and life to it.  We checked out the number of each doorway to make sure we were headed in the right direction.  Every doorway was a little different. Each had some sort of individual artwork either drawn or painted on it: a kind of identifier created by the renter of the apartment.

 

We approached Bob’s door which has his last name Gruen next to the doorbell.  Next to that is a Keith Haring image of a photographer.  A young woman opened the door.  “Hello, I’m Richelle.”  “Hi there,” I answer, “I’m Charlie and this is Cheri.” 

“Please come in.”

 

 

We came into the small, narrow foyer area where the walls, painted with many coats, are white, and jackets and hats hung on hooks.  The foyer turned past a small utilities area and to the small kitchen.  Standing in front of us, a smiling Bob Gruen appeared, “Hello.”

 

We introduce ourselves and shake hands.

 

Bob is a tall and slender man, dressed in a black shirt and pants.  He has a receding hairline with short gray hair on top.  With his piercing blue eyes, he appears younger than his actual age of 79.  I immediately recognized him from all the books, articles, and YouTube videos I’ve seen.

 

He politely asked Richelle to take us down to his studio on the next floor and have me set up my equipment while he could go over some lingering computer work he needed to finish.

 

 

 

Led by Richelle, we went out into the hallway and into an elevator close by.  Richelle is a thin, young, and attractive lady.  She is a brunette with shoulder-length hair and a calm demeaner.  During our short walk to the studio, Richelle tells us she has been with Bob as an assistant for 15 years, after first being an apprentice.  She opened the studio door.  The studio seems small congested with many boxes of photographs and archives

  

 

Elizabeth, Bob’s wife, was sitting at a table. She is a slender, attractive middle-aged lady.  With a cloth she was wiping off a large photograph of the rock band the Sex Pistols.  She introduced herself and started up a conversation.  Elizabeth and Cheri hit it off, and their conversation seemed to go on for the whole time we were in the studio.  One gets the impression Elizabeth is an integral part of Bob’s business.

 

 

 

Elizabeth spoke about Bob’s archive of photographs, “Not much, but some of his stuff went missing.  A lot of the colored slides got sent to some magazines or somewhere and they just didn’t turn up.  While trying to establish the price of the vintage, there’s a lot out there that turn up on eBay or turn up in the UK or here.  It could be any kind of platform possible.  So, it’s hard to keep up.  When the photos are found, Bob’s here to authenticate it - tell the story for it. 

 

 

 

Tell and provide that personal experience for it and give it that authenticity.  We have to figure out how much we have of everything, and he has to sign everything which is a negotiation (Elizabeth laughs at the difficulty of getting Bob to take the time to sign his photographs).  I tried to slip boxes in there and say, ‘Ok, sign this too.’  It’s been a big project and had a whole bunch of graduate students help us archive the photographs”

 

 

Bob entered the room and Richelle excused herself to go upstairs to the apartment to work on some other business.

 

 

Never in a comfortable position

 

“Some weeks you sell some, and some weeks you don’t,” Elizabeth adds.  “Thankfully, Bob can spin a good tale so he can entertain as well.  We sell primarily through the Morrison Hotel Gallery.  They’re very good.  They have a good sales force. They started off with Henri Diltz and two other people and have plans to expand to other cities.  Their team is outstanding.  Bob does exhibitions.  He’s done a huge one in South America.  Everywhere is unique.  We have to make this a legacy especially for his grandchildren.”

 

Bob notes, “I never got comfortable with money. It was never in a comfortable position where I thought, I’m on top.  Being on top still doesn’t pay the rent, so I never had those epiphany moments and thought, wow I made it.  Although I am very well-known, fame doesn’t equal fortune, so it’s frustrating.   A lot of months I’m struggling to pay the rent.  I’m looking for checks, and I’m asking people all the time to buy pictures. 

 

 

 

Thankful to be at Westbeth

 

We’ve had the luxury to be at Westbeth and the luck to have this commercial space since 1997 (although Bob has had his apartment at Westbeth since 1970).  There’s a lot of people in this building. All the apartments in the middle are duplexes and you have to be a family with 2 or more kids to live in one.  There are well over 1200-1500 people in the building.  It’s a utopian dream to have artists live all together, but artists are notoriously independent.  The tenant meetings are interesting because everyone has their unique vision of how a utopian world should be.  There are 400 apartments and 400 visions of a utopia.  We get to discuss it once a year and it can be kind of funny.  Some people can have a conspiracy theory, where others have issues with their radiator.”

 

An early self-portrait.

 

 

 

 

At the beginning

 

Bob, at what age did it click in that photography was a passion for you and it was something you wanted to do for your life?

 

 

“Well, I was 4 or 5 years old when my mom did it for a hobby, and with our new house she put in a darkroom.  I was too little to go to sleep early but too big to leave out running around the house, so she took me into the dark room with her and taught me how to develop pictures.  In those days we didn’t have tanks, we had trays.  We kind of had to lift the film in and out of the trays and count off the seconds in the dark.  That’s some of the earliest memories of my mom developing film in the darkroom.  And then, I kind of took to it.  I liked to see the magic of watching that white piece of paper turn into a photograph in the developer. 

 

 

When I was eight years old my parents gave me my first camera for a present, a Brownie Hawkeye, and I immediately started taking pictures.  I became the family photographer.  I was good at it, and I became the school photographer.  My first published picture was in the town newspaper of a fire.  I was always taking pictures as a hobby.  My parents were attorneys, and they didn’t see photography as a serious job.  They felt that a person should have a decent job and go to work in an office.  That didn’t really work for me   I tried a couple of colleges but that didn’t work and I had a few different jobs.  More and more I was taking pictures.  My cousin had a connection with a famous photography school.  The director of the school gave me a recommendation to Richard Avedon and Alfred Eisenstaedt.  He later wrote a letter back to my parents saying I was a very good photographer, and I guess that was a turning point when I didn’t have to look for another job. 

 

I had to get a job in the business of photography.  I started working for a company that made slide film strips.  I learned how to run an Oxberry camera, which was a highly detailed camera where you can take six different pictures on the same frame.   That job became boring.  I then worked for a fashion studio for a while, which was a little less boring.

 

I lived with a group of guys in a rock and roll band when I moved into Greenwich Village.  When they finally got a record deal, they used some of my pictures and they introduced me to Atlantic Records.  That was kind of the beginning of my entrance into the music business.

 

 

My big break came when I met Ike and Tina Turner in 1970.  They started using some of my pictures, and they introduced me to a publicist who brought me to Alice Cooper and Elton John.  At that time things just started snowballing.  Every time I went somewhere, I met somebody else and they would hire me for another job.

Bob’s photo of John, Yoko, and Sean

 

 

I’ve had a very exciting life, but it wasn’t by accident. it’s because I went out and did it.  One of the benefits of my life is that I don’t like to watch television.  I cannot stand to stay home and just stare at the fucking box. It’s not real – you can pull the plug and it doesn’t exist.  It’s mesmerizing and it’s so unreal.  I feel like their level of intelligence is dumbed down so much during the commercials and such.  I cannot stand to be talked to that way. It’s just annoying.  I don’t understand how people can just sit there and watch tv and watch it just flow over them.  It is so fucking stupid.  I just go out.  I want to see things in real life.  I don’t like reading about it. I don’t like hearing about it.  I like seeing it in real life.  Some people like to smoke a joint and stay home.  I like to smoke a joint and go out somewhere.”

 

 

 

Did you mainly shoot tri-x, black and white? What kind of film did you use? 

 

 

Bob explained how he was able to photograph in a darker environment.  “I shot tri-x at 1600 and used Acufine developer.  That would automatically double the speed.  For me tri-x was 1600, plus-x was 400.  If you develop it in Acufine, you’re not really pushing it.  It just developed it at higher speeds.  I didn’t have to develop it longer than normal, and it was much finer grains.  For color film I used Ecktachrome and usually pushed it one or two stops.  It was too touchy to develop my color at home, and I sent it out (to be processed).

 

 

 

 

 

Were there any conflicts on who owned your photographs during the time you were working for magazines?

 

 

“Not really, because magazines didn’t pay me enough to buy out.  I always owned the copyright.  When you click the shutter, you owned the copyright.  You owned what you make.  I never had to have any discussions about that. 

 

 

I’ve read many of your books and there is a lot of information there.  How do you remember all the detail?

 

 

 “I did it.  I was there, and also I have a lot of pictures to remind me.  When I see the picture, I remember the sound and the smell of the event.  I remember because it was my life.  There was a lot of things I don’t remember, and every once in a while, I’ll think, ‘Holy shit I remember THAT night.’  Bob laughs, “Sometimes I don’t want to remember.”

 

David Bowie

 

Bob, as I’m standing here speaking with you, I can’t help but notice all of these great photographs you have on the wall behind you.  Please tell me how was David Bowie to shoot?

 

 

 “Oh, David was a prince.  He’s an English gentleman -- absolutely proper.  Very creative with a voracious appetite to know things.  He just wants to know everything.  Mick Jagger says, ‘David is like a vacuum; I don’t want to wear new shoes around David Bowie.’”

(L-R) Johnny Rotten, Sid Vicious, Steve Jones and Paul Cook of The Sex Pistols playing with straws at a cafe in Luxembourg. November 1977. © Bob Gruen/www.bobgruen.com

Please contact Bob Gruen's studio to purchase a print or license this photo. email: [email protected]

Image #: R-128

The Sex Pistols by Bob Gruen

 

Jimi Hendrix

 

At the beginning, have you met Jimi Hendrix or Janis Joplin?

 

 

 “I actually met Jimi Hendrix briefly for a moment.  I had printed a photo of Tina Turner, and I was taking it home.  I came out of the subway and Jimi was walking across Sheridan Square, and I followed him down Christopher Street where he went into the Pink Teacup.   I didn’t want to bother him but finally approached him and showed him the printed photo I had of Tine Turner.  He said, ‘That’s a really good picture.’  I said, ‘I’d like to take your picture sometime.’ And Jimi said, ‘Okay, we’ll meet again.’   But he lied: we never met again.”

 

 

 “I saw Janice on stage when the Fillmore opened here in New York, and I never saw her again.  I saw her at a distance at Woodstock, which was a 180-degree difference.  The first time, at the Fillmore, it was the most amazing show I’d ever seen, as a blues singer.  Not better than Tina Turner.  But, in the Janis style, it blew me away.  I went to Woodstock as a fan.  I went as a Who fan.  I bought as I bought Woodstock (festival) tickets to see The Who.  I still have them.  There weren’t any ticket booths at Woodstock.  They put up the fences so quickly they neglected to put in ticket gates.”

Led Zeppelin & Jones, John Paul & Bonham, John & Page, Jimmy & PLed Zeppelin & Jones, John Paul & Bonham, John & Page, Jimmy & P

Bob’s photograph of Led Zeppelin

 

 

 

 

Bob’s photo of Debra Harry at Coney Island.

 

 

Keith Haring


I like your business card with the Keith Haring design on it. (Keith Haring died of aids on February 16,                  1990 at the age of 31)

 

 

“He was a friend. I saw him draw that.  He did that as an autograph in his book.  It was amazing to watch him make his figures because he knows exactly what he’s doing and he draws the outline perfectly.  He knows where it’s coming from and where it’s going.  He sees the whole thing ahead of time.  Keith came to a party at Yoko’s, and I gave him some pictures of him and Andy Warhol and Sean (Lennon).  I got permission from his estate to use the drawing for my card.” 

 

 

John and Yoko

 

During your time with John and Yoko, are there any moments that really stand out during your relationship?

 

 

All of them.  It was always special to be with John and Yoko.  Yoko is a particularly generous and intelligent person.  I’ve learned a lot from her.  She’s given me tremendous and good advice.

 

I don’t know of any moment but, I’ll say going to the statue of liberty with John was a lot of fun.  That was a very special day.  Any day with them was special.

 

According to John Lennon: The New York Years, The Nixon administration continued its efforts to deport John, fearing he would stir up political opposition to their policies.  I’ve always been drawn to symbolism in photography-where with just a look at an image, you can get the meaning- and it dawned on me that taking a picture of John at the Statue of Liberty would help dramatize his case.  After all America stood as the worlds most welcoming nation, and yet we were throwing out one of the world’s greatest artists.”

 

Right Place, Right Time: The Life of a Rock and Roll Photographer, “The next morning we went down to Battery Park to catch the Ferry to Liberty Island.  As we walked around waiting for the ferry, John looked up at the buildings around us and said, ‘I bet I’m paying rent on every one of these buildings.  There’s a lawyer working on something for me in every one of them.’  He told me how every lawyer he had ever visited seemed to move to a bigger office as soon as he hired them.  ‘And it always has my picture on the wall.’

 

We were waiting for the Ferry and a crowd gathered, a bunch of schoolgirls who saw John and immediately started screaming.  John told them that if they’d quiet down, he’d sign autographs.  After that, nobody bothered us.

 

We went to the statue, walked around to the front, and took pictures for a while.  The hard part was trying to get the proportions right, a person 5 feet 10 inches tall standing in front of a statue 305 feet tall.  That took a little adjusting but, eventually I got it.”

 

It was only later, after John won his case, that the Statue of Liberty picture really became an iconic image representing peace and personal freedom.”

Lennon, JohnLennon, JohnJohn Lennon in front of The Statue of Liberty, NYC. October 30, 1974. © Bob Gruen / www.bobgruen.com

Please contact Bob Gruen's studio to purchase a print or license this photo. email: [email protected]

Image #: C-01

Bob’s photo of John Lennon in front

 of The Statue of Liberty

 

 

 

 

Can you speak of any advice you received from Yoko?

 

 

Oh, from Yoko?  Well basically, when you sign a contract, you should get the biggest advance you can because that’s the only amount of money you’ll ever get.  Whatever they promise is in the future and remains to be seen and usually doesn’t appear.  That always seems to ring true.

 

Yoko gave me a recipe for a ginger tea that’s a miracle cure for a sore throat.  You just boil 6 or 8 inches of ginger for 45 minutes and add lemon and honey in it.  It cures your throat.

 

My photo of Bob

 

 

 

 

 

Bob, on the wall behind you I see the photograph of John Lennon with the New York City t-shirt on.  Can you tell me how that photo happened?

 

 

 

John asked me to come to his apartment.  He had a little penthouse on the rooftop (during a time John and Yoko were separated).  He needed a whole series of his face all the same size.  They were making an album cover where they would cut the face into strips and fold the strips over.  He sat there and made faces.  John said let’s make pictures up on the roof so we would have a publicity kit ready.  I had given him that (white New York City t-shirt) shirt a year earlier.  I had six of them, and I used to wear them almost every day.  The graphics are very powerful, and there’s something about the phrase that people react to.  If it says Cleveland, people will just look at you.  If it would say New York City, there is a more edge to it and a power to that phrase.  I remember I gave John one of my shirts.  They were just made by some guys who sold them on the street for five dollars.  Now you can get a designer style for about $150.  I bought one for my agent and my girlfriend.  One day I was on my way to the studio, the guys were there, and I bought one for John.  I liked to cut the sleeves off because it gave it a more New York macho look.  I used to carry a buck knife in those days, and I took it out and I cut the sleeves off. 

 

It's now a year later, we’re on the rooftop taking pictures, and I asked John if he still had that shirt.  He had been back and forth to L.A. a few times - have you heard of the lost weekend?  So, I was impressed that John knew where it was because a lot of people gave him things.  We took the pictures and had no idea they would become as iconic as they have.  It looks self-revelatory. 

Lennon, JohnLennon, JohnJohn Lennon on rooftop in New York City. August 29, 1974. © Bob Gruen / www.bobgruen.com

Please contact Bob Gruen's studio to purchase a print or license this photo. email: [email protected]

Image #: R-2

Bob’s photo of Lennon on the rooftop

 

 

John and Yoko had a realization of their relevancy in modern music and their part of the history of pop culture.  Can you speak of John and Yoko’s acceptance of having their photo constantly taken.

 

 

By the time I met John and Yoko, they were the most famous couple in the world, and they knew that.  They knew most people had an interest in them, and they felt that their life should be documented.  They would sometimes have film crews around when they were doing certain events.  They liked the fact that they got along with me.  It wasn’t like they were hiring a photographer, and I enjoyed hanging out with them.  At the beginning, there was a lot of drinking and it was one big party.  I also stayed friends with them separately when they were separated.  In many cases in my life, I’m like Switzerland. I get along with everybody.  I don’t make judgements, and I don’t embarrass people.  During the time they were separated, I didn’t go to L.A. and get involved with John’s drunken chaos.  I went to Japan with Yoko and made all kinds of contacts which benefitted me a lot for the rest of my life.  My autobiography has just been published in Japan.  I have a long history there, thanks to Yoko.

 

Flashback

December 8th 1980

Colvin Avenue, Buffalo, NY.

11 pm

The Day the Music Died, Part II

 

 

 

It was a typically long weekday.   After work and the usual family chores which included getting my 6-month-old daughter in the crib for the evening, I finally had time for myself.  I remember how I was slouched on the couch nodding off while watching Monday Night Football, a game between the New York Jets and the New England Patriots. 

 

The Monday Night Football games were quite a big weekly event back in those days, and the games didn’t start until 9:00 pm eastern standard time.   For the working people, this time of the evening makes it a late start.  With the unmistakable and legendary voice of Howard Cosell resonating through my apartment, I began stirring from an on-again, off-again slumber.

 

The time was approaching 11:00 pm and the game was on the line with an upcoming, deciding field goal.  I will never forget these words from Howard Cosell:

 

Yes, we have to say it.  Remember this is just a football game.  No matter who wins or loses, an unspeakable tragedy, confirmed to us by ABC News in New York City.  John Lennon, outside of his apartment building on the westside of New York City, The most famous perhaps of all of the Beatles.  Shot twice in the back.  Rushed to Roosevelt Hospital – dead on arrival.

 

This horrifying and numbing news immediately sobered me up from a kind of hypnotic state.  Cosell’s words couldn’t have knifed through any deeper.  John Lennon, a legend who helped shape my childhood with his words and music, was gone.

 

Memories of Don McClean’s epic song American Pie came to mind.  Albeit, the day the music died, part II

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thursday May 16, 2024, 4:00 pm

West Village, New York City

 

 

Do you remember where you were when you heard the news?

 

 

”Yeah, I was in the darkroom developing pictures I had taken two days earlier.  It was the worst news I ever got.  I had seen him on a Friday night; he was murdered on a Monday night.  I had seen him on that Friday night into Saturday morning.  There was a glitch in the taping (at John’s music studio), so we sat on the floor for like two or three hours just talking.  He was very happy that his record was going up the charts.  He was doing really well, and he was planning a world tour.  So, I went home that night thinking come March or April I was going around the world with John and Yoko. 

 

 

 

On Monday night that all came crashing down.  The fact that he was a friend and not just a famous person or poet that I liked.  It was very difficult with the whole world watching to deal with the grief of losing a friend when everybody else was losing an idol.  To me, it was much more real than that.  It was such a difficult time; it was also so stupid (speaking of the reason John got shot).  It was the stupidest thing in the world to actually happen.  Which called into question everything.  I just had to question everything, and it took me a long time to get over it.  I’m not over it.  You never get over it; you get used to it.  It’s like when you get a cut and it’s really bad and it really hurts, but eventually it will heal and there’ll be a scar.  If you touch that scar, you will feel the pain again and you never get over it. And that’s the way I feel about it.

 

“I’m old enough now and I miss a lot of people,” Bob laughs, “I have people dropping dead every week.”

 

I heard it from Howard Cosell.

 

“Yeah, I think the whole world heard it from him.  He didn’t want to do it from what I understand.”

 

 “I was in the darkroom and my doorman heard it.  He called up and said, ‘Do you have a radio or TV on?’ and I said, “No what happened?”  He said, ‘John Lennon’s been shot.’  “My first impression was – New York was kind of dangerous in those days, and I thought he would be shot, like, in the arm.  That’s not dead.  So, it was kind of awkward at first. 

 

 

I thought he’d gone out to get something to eat.   He never carried any money. He didn’t buy things. People did things for him and maybe somebody tried to rob him and he got shot.  Then a friend of mine called up from California and said, ‘I just heard on TV that John was dead.’ 

 

I just kind of sank to the floor with the reality of it all, just sinking in because dead is the most permanent word that I heard.  I like to fix things, and I remember sitting there just trying to figure out how to fix that, and you can’t.  Then my phone just started ringing, and I realized the whole world was watching.  I started pulling up files because I realized it was my job to make them look good in the newspapers.  I had a lot to do that week and I didn’t sleep.

 

 

When you first met Yoko after that event, can you speak of how that went down?

 

 

 

We were pretty much in shock. Yoko was eating chocolate, and we weren’t saying much at all.  She was a pillar of strength.  I don’t remember if it was a Thursday, but within a few days she mentioned, ‘When you’re in a crusade or in a campaign when the guy with the flag goes down, someone else has to pick it up. You don’t just leave it there.’  John was carrying a big flag, so it took a lot of people to try to pick it up.  That’s the point (referring to Yoko) is that you keep going on and you don’t stop.  Yoko didn’t stop.  She was a great inspiration for all the rest of us to keep going and not stop, which was really difficult because nothing made sense after that.

 

 

When Richelle wrote to me explaining you lived at the Westbeth Artists’ Housing, it came to my mind that Diane Arbus had lived here.  Did you ever run into her before her death? (Diane Arbus died July26, 1971 at the age of 48 due to an apparent suicide).

 

She was here at the beginning, but I didn’t know her.  She died in the building but only a few months after I moved here.  In fact, a couple years later when her book came out in 1974, I remember looking through it with John Lennon.  I told John she had such a grasp of reality and John said, ‘Look what it got her?’  Bob laughs, “Maybe it’s okay not to know too much.”

Bob and I at his studio.

 

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[email protected] (Charles Hahn) https://hahnphoto.net/blog/2024/6/bob-gruen-in-the-west-village-nyc Sun, 09 Jun 2024 15:09:19 GMT
Harvey Stein https://hahnphoto.net/blog/2024/1/harvey-stein  Harvey Stein

Harvey SteinHarvey SteinHarvey Stein
Harvey Stein

 

Harvey Stein is a professional photographer currently living in New York City.  Stein is an educator, author, and curator.  He currently teaches at the International Center of Photography in New York City.  He is a frequent lecturer of photography in the United States and abroad.  His photographs are in 58 permanent collections including the George Eastman Museum and the Art Institute of Chicago.  Stein’s photographs are represented by Sous les Étoiles Gallery in New York City.  His website is www.harveysteinphoto.com.

Stein has been obsessed with Coney Island for decades, returning more than 600 times in over 50 years.  He has documented many of those visits with his book, Coney Island People – 50 Years, 1970-2020.

 

 10 am Saturday, August 26, 2023

Upper West Side, Manhattan, New York City

 

 

It’s a Saturday morning and not a lot of traffic while I traveled from my hotel in the Gramercy District to the Upper West Side of Manhattan.  My Uber driver pulled up to an older apartment building situated just a block from Riverside Park.  From the car I took out my two bags of camera equipment and a tripod.  I set them down on the cement sidewalk, bent down, glanced in through the passenger side window and thanked the driver for the ride.

 

The driver took off and I looked up and down the street to get my bearings.  I was recently in the neighborhood two days before, albeit a few streets south, meeting with Peter Turnley, photographer for Newsweek magazine and who has residences in Paris and NYC. What a difference a few streets make in terms of the architecture.   Two days earlier, I walked among a gothic-style set of row houses that date from 1894.  Today, I am surrounded by the pre-war brownstone buildings. 

 

Carrying my bags of equipment, I strolled in through the entranceway of Harveys’ building and was greeted by the doorman. 

“May I help you?”

“Hello, I’m Charlie Hahn here to see Harvey Stein.”

“Just one second.”

The doorman picked up a black phone resting at his deck and dialed a number.  “Hello, a Mr. Charlie is here.  I will let him know.”  He placed the phone down and turned toward me, “Mr. Stein will be right down.”

“Thank you.”

 

From around the corner a tall man with a receding gray hairline appears.  Harvey is wearing a pair of blue jeans and a light gray t-shirt with ‘Coney Island’ written with black letters on the front.  From photos I’ve seen I immediately recognize Harvey. 

“Hello Harvey,” I said.  “I’m Charlie. Nice to meet you.”

“Hi Charlie. You’re from North Carolina?”

“Yes, Winston-Salem.”

 

As we talk, we slowly walked through the foyer area and entranceway and out of the building.  The sound and energy of the city fills the air, and we found ourselves standing on the sidewalk outside the building.    

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

“I’ve never been there.  I’ve been to Charlotte, Raleigh, and Duke doing workshops there.”

“Winston-Salem is somewhat of a college town with Wake Forest,” I said.

“Yeah, I’m from Pittsburgh originally, and I follow the University of Pittsburgh football team and they play Wake Forest.”

 

Harvey and I started walking.  We came to the first corner and made a right turn toward Riverside Park which now appeared very close to us on the opposite side of the preceding street corner.

 

“Are you still teaching photography?” I ask Harvey.

 

“Oh yeah. I start two classes in October, and (firstly) I have a weekend workshop that I’m doing here (in NYC).  Then I’m doing a long workshop in India that’s just forming now.  I love India.  I‘ve been there six times.  I’m working on a book on Indian street people.  All portraits.  It’s pretty cool.  The people of India pretty much came up to me as I photographed them.  99% of the people say yes when I asked.  They feel it’s an honor to be photographed.  I do candid shots, but I mostly ask (their permission) when I go up to people, if I like them.”

 

We came up to the park and entered through a gate where a few park benches encircle an oval shaped fountain.  The benches were empty except for one fellow who sat at a bench at the opposite side of the fountain.  Ignoring our presence, he was consumed with an open newspaper on his lap.

 

“Are you still teaching at the school here in New York (International Center of Photography)?” I ask.

“Yes, and I also teach at the Los Angeles Center as well.  It’s an on-line class.  Since Covid, the ICP classes have been on-line.”

 

 

Harvey Speaks about His Preference of Film

 

“I still have a darkroom in midtown which I share with a few other people and it’s private.  I develop my own film in my place which is a little tiresome after doing it for 40 years,” Harvey jokes.  “I prefer film but while on the India trips, I shoot digital.”

 

“I prefer film over digital,” I tell Harvey.  “I’m old-school and will not over edit my photos in Photoshop or Lightroom.  Whatever choices I am limited to in the darkroom such as dodge, burn, and cropping my photos, that is what I try to maintain in the digital world and for my film photographs.  I feel like I am cheating myself if I over edit my film photographs.”

 

“I agree with you.  Kids today have never been in a darkroom.  Most of my students have never seen a darkroom,” Harvey adds. 

 

 

Meeting Diane Arbus

 

                “I met Diane Arbus in 1971.  She interviewed her prospective students which I was one of.  Arbus was teaching on her own because there were no schools back then.  She had an ad in The Times in a photo column of The Arts section.  It wasn’t an ad, but a notice of an available class to take.  She lived in a famous apartment complex called the Westbeth Apartments known to house artists in the West Village.  It was subsidized housing for artists in which you could apply to live there.  I can remember when I met her; we sat in these folding chairs facing each other in the basement.  She accepted me, but I didn’t do it.  I took another class taught by another photographer named Ben Hayman.  I thought I’d take Hayman’s workshop and then take Diane Arbus’s class after that.  However, soon after I met with Arbus, she killed herself.  So now I say, she killed herself because I didn’t take her class,” Harvey joked.  “The Westbeth Apartments are still there, but it’s impossible to get in there.”

 

Ben Fernandez

 

“Ben Fernadez was my photography hero.  He was the best in the early ’70s.  He was an Hispanic-American who lived in East Harlem. A rough guy and he was fabulous.  He photographed King, with several books on Martin Luther King.  He was teaching, and he took me under his wing.  He took me to his house and I used his darkroom.  He then kicked me out because I was getting too good,” Harvey joked.  “Fernadez said, ‘You’re getting too good and I don’t need the competition.’  That’s always important for a photographer to have maybe one person to mentor you.”

 

 

During our time at Riverside Park, I continued to shoot photos of Harvey while we chatted about our mutual love of photography.  Due to a commitment Harvey had, our meeting was cut short after 90 minutes.  I felt a need to ask a few more questions of Harvey, so I arranged to speak with him on the phone a week after I returned home to North Carolina.

 

I slowly placed my Rolleiflex twin lens camera gently in my camera bag.  My Minolta Hi-Matic 35 mm film camera and a small mirrorless digital camera were also systematically placed. 

 

Harvey and I exchanged small talk as I folded up my tripod.

 

“Harvey, before I go, how about a selfie?” I asked.

 

“Sure thing.”

 

Harvey SteinHarvey SteinHarvey Stein
Harvey Stein

Harvey in the fountain at Riverside Park

Photo by Charles Hahn

 

 

 

 

Phone Interview with Harvey

Monday, August 31, 2020

 

 

 

                                           “Hello Harvey, how are you?” I asked. 

                                           “Good, good.  Just got off the phone with my wife.  She’s in Warsaw at the moment,” Harvey said.

                                           “Did you have a great trip to New York?” Harvey asked me.

                                           “Yes, I did.  I love New York; it’s the place to be.”

                                           “There’s a lot of energy.  I’ve lived here since 1966. I came here to go to Columbia for grad school and I stayed.,” added                                             Harvey.

 

 

Coney Island

 

     Your book, Coney Island People had taken you over 50 years of your dedication and time.  What do you like about Coney Island that keeps you so         interested?”

     “The thing that keeps me going with it (Coney Island) are the people.  It’s not the place, although the place is kind of neat.  Have you been there?”       Harvey asks me.

     “Yes, we went to Coney Island last year, and I can see what you mean about how the people are special.”

     “People are happy there or they’re looser. I don’t feel totally comfortable shooting on the beach itself.  I don’t necessarily like to interrupt people           doing things.  I would have to be in the mood for it.  I’m usually always in the mood to photograph it, but sometimes I feel more aggressive than         other times.”

     “What attracted me originally in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s was that it was really funky and dangerous.  Now it’s much improved and renovated.  There       weren’t really a lot of rides in the old days.  There were drunks and drugs.  It was really falling apart, especially in the 70s when I first started. 

 

     “Do you still go back to Coney Island?” I asked.

 

     “Yeah!  There’s a group of people called the Polar Bear Swim Club.  It’s the oldest swim club in America, founded in 1803.  They swim in the                 Atlantic Ocean from mid-November to mid-April.  They go in the water at 1 pm on each Sunday in those months, and I would go and photograph         them.   There are good events there (at Coney Island) that I would try to make.”

 

     “There’s the Mermaid Parade they have in every June.  It’s probably one of the best parades ever.  If you could come up for that (to photograph)           it’s incredible.   It’s held the third Saturday of each June.  I’m trying not to go to Coney so much, and it’s time for me to move on from it after               photographing it for fifty years.  I’ve done three books on Coney Island.  I think I’ve done what I want to do there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Other Boroughs of New York

 

New York has really gentrified since I’ve been here.  Like Soho (lower Manhattan) used to be a warehouse area and now you can do a lot of shopping, and also there’s a lot of galleries there.  It has totally changed. Times Square was very dangerous.”

 

“Every neighborhood was very different, and now it’s very homogenized.  Now I like photographing out in the boroughs more.  Jackson Heights in Queens has the largest population of Indians, Tibetans, and Afghans.  Jackson Heights has more languages spoken than any other place in the world.  Seventy-three or seventy-six languages.  I started going there maybe five or eight years ago and now I go there a lot.  Every kind of restaurant or store could have a different ethnicity.  It’s very universal.   The neighborhood of Flushing in (the borough of) Queens is like you’re in China.  There’s hardly any English spoken.  That’s really what I like (to photograph in).  I don’t like Park Avenue or Madison Avenue or even Broadway.  What’s really neat too are the events that occur.  I just went to a topless march; I wouldn’t call it a parade.  Women topless.  Protesting the fact that they just can’t take their shirts off if they want to as men can.  There’s not equality.  So, half of New York State women CAN take their shirts off, be bare chested and not be arrested.  But they don’t do it because they would cause too much of a commotion. I got an earful from the participants.” 

 

     “An earful or an eyeful?” I joked.

 

     “Well, it was funny because out of the older women, only one woman had nice breasts to be honest with you.”

 

     “You know who Bruce Gilden is right?  Bruce and I hung out a lot and it was kind of wild,” Harvey said.

 

     (Bruce Gilden is a New York City Street photographer who became popularized for his street portraits using a strobe or a flash while getting very           close to his subjects.)

 

     “We went to Naked City, Indiana to photograph.  They had the Miss Nude America contest.  It was a nudist colony essentially and it was kind of             wild.” 

 

A photo I shot of Harvey at Riverside Park

 

 

 

Harvey’s Artist Project

 

                “I did a book of artists which I spent six years working on. It included 165 different artists, and I interviewed them all.  Abrams published the book and we sold 10,000 copies.  It was a beautiful book with very famous artists and some not so famous.  Therefore, I know what you’re going through with your project (Harvey, speaking of my project of interviewing famous and not-so-famous photographers).  At the time of my artist project there was no email of course, so I had to call everyone.  It took me three years to get through to Andy Warhol.  He never said no but he never said yes.  I think he tested me and said, ‘Oh, I’m busy now, call me in six months.’  He thought I wouldn’t.  But I wrote that down and I called back in six months.  You have to be persistent and not in an antagonistic manner.   Warhol only gave me ten minutes, but I got a really good interview out of that.  These were very famous artists and I was very naive as I set out on my project.”

 

“Artists were interesting by how they look or behave.  I photographed them in their studios with some of their work.  There was never a lull in their studio with their work.  I was able to photograph artists, and I managed to put them into their work to make a satisfying a composition.  Art was big and popular in the ’80s.  I got refused by some, but I always had a reference and wouldn’t be some Joe Blow off the street. 

 

Selfie by CH

 

 

 

 

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[email protected] (Charles Hahn) https://hahnphoto.net/blog/2024/1/harvey-stein Fri, 12 Jan 2024 11:58:23 GMT
Elliott Landy https://hahnphoto.net/blog/2023/10/elliott-landy Elliott Landy

 

Elliott in his Woodstock, NY. studio

Photo by Charles Hahn

 

 

     Photographer Elliott Landy was born in the New York City borough of the Bronx and currently resides in Woodstock, NY.  He found the art of photography at an early age and worked for underground newspapers in the 1960s to hone his photographic skills and use them to photograph the rock music counterculture of the times.

 

     Landy became an iconic photographer of many legendary music and art figures in and around the time of The Woodstock Art Festival in 1969.  His photographic images include the likes of Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin (Big Brother and the Holding Company), Van Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Joan Baez, Eric Clapton, Peter, Paul and Mary, Richie Havens, and the Band.  Elliott was one of the first music photographers to be recognized as an artist.

 

     Elliott has written multiple books including Woodstock Vision: the Spirit of a Generation; Photographs of Janis Joplin: on the Road and Stage; and, The Band Photographs: 1968-1969, all published by Backbeat Books. 

 

 

 

 

Friday, September 8, 2023

Woodstock, NY.

12:30pm

 

 

 

     My assistant Cheri and I are weaving and winding through a narrow half-paved and graveled country road at the foothills of the Catskill Mountains.  Through heavily wooded views we can make out a structure on our right side indicating a partially hidden driveway is quickly approaching.  We turn right into the drive and through a short passage of woods where three structures appear in front of us.  There are four other cars parked about the area and I squeeze our rented Toyota Rav4 in between the two buildings and next to one of the other cars.

 

     As we are getting out of our rental, a middle-aged lady walks out of the home on our left to greet us, “Hi I’m Lynda, Elliott’s wife.”  Lynda is an attractive thin woman with shoulder-length brunette hair.  As she comes towards us their cat bounces alongside of her, curiously checking us out.  We exchange pleasantries and soon Elliott appears out of his studio, the building on the right of us.  Elliott, is a tall thin man over 6 feet and much younger in appearance than his currant age of 80.  Having read books and watched videos that included Elliott, I immediately recognized Elliott.

 

     “Thanks for Seeing us,” I said.

     “No, thanks for coming on short notice. It’s been a very hectic day as all my days are.  We have a place in the city (New York City) we try to go to every other week and I tell people I go there to escape the stress of Woodstock.”

 

     We enter Elliott’s studio and immediately notice a multitude of familiar photographs all around us.  Many are hanging up on the walls and some are scattered on a table.  Elliott leads us around the lower level of the two-story structure.  A middle-aged woman appears and we share our pleasantries.  “This is my assistant, Virginia,” Elliot adds.  Virginia is an attractive lady with a medium build and medium-length brunette hair. 

 

 

     “This room used to be my darkroom, but now I use it for scanning and storage.”

           

     We enter a back room of the lower level where we are introduced to a young lady who is sitting at a desk and studying a computer screen.

 

 

            “This is Caitlin.  She is the designer.  She put together the Janis Joplin book and now we’re doing a second Band book.  She has a very easy job going through ten thousand photographs,” Elliott jokes.

 

            “It’s an honor (to work) for him,” Caitlin nods towards Elliott.

 

            “Caitlin is a very fine photographer in her own right as well, and that’s the reason I hired her: her skill and use of visual quality.  Her visual aesthetic.”

 

Photographs by Charles Hahn

 

 

 

Janis Joplin

 

I notice a photograph on the wall of Janis Joplin.  “That’s my favorite photo of Janis. I love that photograph,” I remark.

 

            “I like it, too, and that’s why we open the book with that picture.”  Elliott turns his Janis Joplin book to one of the beginning pages and identifies the photo of Janis.

Elliott’s photograph of Janis Joplin on stage

at the 1969 Woodstock Music Festival

 

 

            “So, here’s what we wrote to go with that picture.”  He points to a poem on the page in his book with the suggestion of how Janis lived her short life as he knew her.  “It was like perfect

for Janis’ life,” replied Elliott.

 

 

 

            My candle burns at both ends; It will not last the night;

            But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends-

            It gives a lovely light!

                        -Edna St. Vincent Millay, Published in 1918

 

 

 

Elliott and his new work

 

     We walk up a narrow winding stairway and enter the second floor of Landy’s studio.  We enter a large room with white walls and photos on most surfaces of the wall.  There are many tables and cabinets with an assortment of large color photographs covering the tops of the tables.  At the rear of the room there are shelves with a multitude of flat boxes containing hundreds of photographs of Elliott’s archives.

     “This is my newest work here.”

     “I want to see a whole wall of it. We will frame them,” Virginia adds.

 

     “Do you do your own framing here?” I ask.

 

     “We do, actually.  We just did for this (Elliott gestures towards his new, color photography) because it was for a show.  The show was in France.  I haven’t started to sell these yet.  I want to show them to the art market, not to the photography market.

     “This is the way the picture comes out of the camera using a filter.  I don’t manipulate it.  All we do is print it.  It’s hard to get it printed to make it look like the original work.”

Elliott holds up a printed photo

from his recent project.

           

            “What kind of printer do you use?” I ask.

 

            “I use an HP.  I have a lady that prints for me.  She used to come every day, but now it’s just once a week.”

 

 

     “Can we (sit) get comfortable?  I would like to ask you a few questions, take a few photos, and get out of your hair.  I don’t want to overstay our welcome.”

 

     “Oh yeah, thank you.  I couldn’t schedule a session with you until yesterday because I didn’t know what was happening.”

 

            “How long have you been here at this facility?”

 

            “In this house? Twenty-three years.  Before that I lived for two years - I was renting a place in West Hurly overlooking a reservoir.  Then for ten years before that I was living on hill 99 in Woodstock.

            “I first met Lynda in college in 1960, I think.  We hadn’t seen each other in 37 years and we re-connected and we’ve been together for 23 years now.

Photo by Charles Hahn
 

 

 

When It all started

 

            “When did you first pick up a camera, and do you remember the moment a light when on in your head and you thought this is something you wanted to do?”

 

            “Really, I picked up the darkroom first.  When I was fourteen years old, we were at a bungalow colony for the summer.  They had different activities.  One of the activities was the darkroom, and I went in there and never came out.  I was just totally attracted to the darkroom.  The chemicals and the process of making contact prints.  They had like a 2 ½ inch negative from a Kodak Brownie camera.  I wound up being the assistant counselor for the darkroom.  I showed people how the make contact sheets.  How to develop the prints they made.  I would mix the chemicals with the thermometer and stuff and I was just totally I love with it.  I had no interest at all in photography.  It was nothing about photography.  It was something about the darkroom.  It was home.  Forget tennis, forget boating, I was never an outdoor person, I was an indoor guy.”

            “My parents had an old Kodak Brownie camera.  So, I just took a few pictures of my sisters because I needed my own film to make a print to play with.  I wasn’t interested in photographing at all.  I look back at those pictures now, that I didn’t have for many years.  When my mother passed away, I got them.  I found them again and they’re really good photographs.  If a young person showed me these photographs and said, ‘Do you like these photographs?’  I would say wow, they’re really good photographs.  Instinctively, I was a good picture taker.  I wasn’t even thinking of composition, I guess I was feeling it, but I had no concept of it.  I was never able to take a straight-on boring picture.  I was totally ignorant of the idea of photography.”

            “Do you remember the first time you were published?” I asked.

 

            “Before I even had a camera of my own, I borrowed my older sister’s Polaroid camera and a very shaky tri-pod she had.  I was going out to Fire Island and I took a picture of a full-moon over one of the sandy beach streets.  I took it over to the Fire Island News and they published it.”

 

     “After college I had an office job and after six months, I knew I didn’t want to be in the office.  I had only taken the office job to save money to travel.  I had to decide what to do, and it was one of two things:  I wanted to go out with girls, and I wanted to take pictures.  While I was working this office job, I was working in Manhattan at 72nd Street and Broadway, and I noticed a building that was quite ornate.  I was standing in the street and I thought, wow that’s incredible.”

 

     “I wanted to share that with somebody, and I looked around to see if I knew anybody by chance.  I didn’t know anybody, so I thought I should get a camera.  That was the moment I decided I wanted a camera.  I first got myself a Nikorette which was an amateur, smaller quality Nikon camera.  After a week and a half, I switched out.  I got a better Nikon camera in which I could take the viewfinder off and look down into it.  So, immediately my creative instincts surpassed what was available in the camera I bought.  So, it was as if something came back to me like from a past life or something like that.”

 

            “Getting the Nikon camera came after the Polaroid experience. I did so well with the Polaroid I wanted to get a camera where I could control it.  So, I decided I would like to make money with photography.

 

            “I got myself an enlarger, which I put up in my parents’ kitchen at night.  Made some prints.  Then I wanted to take a class or two in it.  Photography was not considered an art form in those years.  There was only one class of note: hi-quality photography coarse at the New School of Social Research.  Lisette Model was teaching it.  I applied for the monitor’s position which means that I wouldn’t have to pay for the class.  I would take attendance to make sure everybody came in and was registered.”

 

 

 

Time as a student

 

            “I remember meeting with Lisette Model, and she just loved my pictures.  They (the photographs) were stuff made on a federal enlarger in my kitchen in Manhattan and the Bronx.   A young person I needed that support.  In my later years, I wish I had the opportunity to teach a little bit, not just to do portfolio reviews of younger people.”

 

 

            “When I decided to become a photographer and I got my camera, I had gotten an apartment on 88th Street and Broadway.  A two and a half room apartment.  I put up a background paper in the living room and I started to offer to do portraits for actors.  I put in an ad in Backstage newspaper.  I built a sink in my bedroom and an 8-foot wooden waterproofed sink.  So, I was really committed.   I have some of those prints, and some of them are striking, great photos.”

 

            “I developed my skill set after Lisette Model.  I had no participation in class whatsoever.  All I needed was that first meeting with her and the rest of it (the class) had no meaning to me.”

 

            “The second class I took was with a guy named Lawrence Shustak, who was a great New York City photographer.  He was a street photographer of graffiti and all that.  He was really my mentor.  I took a class in advance photography.  I became the monitor for that.  I used to come in early and mixed the chemicals for him and stuff like that.  I worked as his assistant and we became friends later.  From him, I was taught the perfection of photography and how you could stand all day long to make one print in the darkroom, till you get it right.  You just do it and do it until it’s right, and this is what you do. I really learned how to be an artist.  I learned the craft of being an artist.”

 

 

 

Photography as an occupation

 

            “My first job was going to Denmark and working for 6 months and it was a magical time for me.  I had to photograph some scantily clad women.  I tried to get these photographs back from this Danish film studio.  It was in 1967.  I had the chance to stay on and on.  There were other things I could do there. The Vietnam war was happening and I wanted to get back to the states to do what I can to stop the war.”

 

            “The first thought I had was I would go to Vietnam and take pictures to show how bad war is.  My second thought is I don’t want to be shot and be hurt or killed.  There were peace demonstrations and I wound up working for the Westside News.  They were very liberal and they got me a police-press pass which got me into the demonstrations without getting hit by the police or pushed around.”

 

 

 

Start as a music photographer

 

            “Then I started working with a newspaper called the Rat Subterranean News.  It was an underground liberal newspaper.  I became the photographer for that.  One night I was walking home in the lower eastside, and I see a marquee that said Country Joe and the Fish – Lightshow.  I had no idea what that was.  I walked over to the box office and I heard the music from the inside.  I showed my police-press pass and they let me in.  I was greeted by this incredible light show.  It wasn’t like a screen.  It was a whole wall filled with moving imagery that was with rhythmic time to the music.  It was phenomenal.  I was in back (of the theater) and I had my cameras with me, and I wanted to get closer to the stage. And that’s how I started photographing music: just by chance.  I wanted to photograph rock-n-roll people.  I say in my book that I was never a fan, that I only photographed the musicians because I liked the experience of being at the concert.  But also, when I was doing it, I was proselytizing and I was publishing pictures that would hopefully bring people into this new culture.  Smoking grass was part of it.  You wanted to do what YOU wanted to do, not what they wanted you to do.  You entered the Fillmore East, and people handed you a joint as soon as you entered the theater – not quite exact.  It was just a new culture; you could dress any way you want.  You’re supposed to do your own thing, which means find your own thing and what you like in life and learn to live from it.”

 

 

 

            “For me, when I was taking the rock-n-roll pictures, I was saying pay attention to these people.  The stars were the same as the audience.  They were really all the same people, and they all were against the war, and they would speak out against the war and smoking grass and being free.  It was only a lifestyle.  To me it was only proselytizing.” 

 

 

 

            “That led me to the second concert after Country Joe; it was Janis Joplin.  So I went up there, and I was able to go backstage because I had cameras and there were no other photographers around and you were able to do that.  Linda Eastman was actually back stage the whole time.  I have pictures of her with Janis.  I always think I should have contacted her when she was married to Paul because we were very friendly at the time, but I never did.”

The Jimi Hendrix Experience, (Billy Cox, Noel Redding), Joshua Light Show, Fillmore East, NYC, 1968. Photo By ©Elliott Landy, LandyVision Inc.

Jimi Hendrix at the Fillmore East in New York City, 1968

Photo By Elliott Landy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

First Meeting with the Band and Bob Dylan

 

 

 

 

            “I got an assignment with a magazine to photograph Janis; to photograph her and Big Brother and the Holding Company.”

 

     “Bob Dylans’s manager, Albert Grossman, was Janis’s manager also and (once) threw me out of a Dylan concert because I was photographing.  But then he forgave me.  He (Grossman) saw some photographs that I dropped off (to Grossman’s office) of Janis.  One night I was photographing Janis at the Club Generation (it became Ladyland), a small club in New York City with low ceilings.  Big Brother was playing. You can’t hear a thing, and someone taps me on the back and I see it was Albert, and he goes like this (Elliott motions with his hand as if beckoning someone), like follow me.  I don’t know if he’s going to throw me out again or why he's there and why he’s doing this.  He takes me into the back and into a large utility closet with brooms and cleaning liquid and buckets and stuff.  He says, ‘Are you free to take some pictures next weekend?’   I said, yeah.  What Band is it?  He said, ‘Well we don’t have a name yet. We were thinking of maybe the Crackers.  Or they won’t have a name at all because they don’t want to be pigeon-holed into doing a certain kind of music.’  What’s a better word or synonym for pigeon-holed?  Anyone who’s reading this article please write in.  Okay, Albert says, ‘I want you go and meet these people.’  So, I went up into this recording studio in New York City where the Band was doing some mixing and stuff.  They were through recording Big Pink already, and I met Robbie Robertson and I showed him my photographs I brought.  Mostly, I had performing shots because I thought that’s what they would want.  I didn’t know what they wanted at all (actually).  Robbie says, ‘That’s not really what we’re interested in, but I really like the pictures and yes you can do it.’ I also had some portraits I had taken of actors.  So, that worked out, and that’s how I met the Band.

 

     “After that meeting, we then went to Toronto and then to Woodstock a few times.  I kept working with the underground newspaper, the Rat.  At some point when I was doing the photographs for Big Pink, I met Bob Dylan.  It was at a party at Albert’s house, and it was just a very brief introduction.  We didn’t even shake hands.  But then some months later, after we finished the Big Pink thing, Dylan had agreed to allow himself to be photographed for the cover.  He had agreed to have his picture on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post.

 

     “When I photographed Bob, we got really friendly. I was the closest to him and connected to him in terms of the conversations we had and stuff.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

     “Did Bob live far from Big Pink?”

The house nicknamed Big Pink by members of the Band and

became the title of the Band’s first album.

Photo by Charles Hahn.

 

 

 

 

     “Well, it was in the same neighborhood.”

312 Bob Dylan, outside his Byrdcliffe home, Saturday Evening Post session, Woodstock, NY, 1968

Elliott took this photograph of Bob Dylan at his

home in Woodstock, NY. 1969

 

 

 

 

 

The process of film developing and printing during the Big Pink days

 

“What was your process of developing and printing during the Big Pink time frame?”

 

            “Big Pink I was still in New York.  I processed the film in my darkroom in New York.  I was very careful about it.  I learned from Shustak.  Color film I had done by a lab.  I never processed that.”

A portrait of The Band shot in Rick Danko’s basement in Woodstock, N.Y. 1969

Photo by Elliott Landy

 

 

     “How did you get into the infra-red film?”

 

            “When I was in Denmark to start with, I met a guy, a German photographer, who showed me infra-red pictures he had taken.  He had showed me a whole slide sheet.  I thought they were very nice.  So, I remembered it and I wanted to explore it myself. I was just starting to do that when I met the band, so I was in my infra-red period, I call it.  It’s very hard to take infra-red colored pictures because the focus is different.  It’s not a visual focus.  You can focus visually but then you would have to look at a scale on the lens and then move it over a little bit.  Look at the lens scale and calculate the differences.  But I managed to do that.  That was just an experiment.”

            “I always liked to experiment with things.  Being 80 years old now, I see my pattern that once I’ve done my genre of work, I’m not interested in continuing it.  It’s not how good it is or how nice it is; it’s the newness of something and the floriation of it.  Once I’ve mastered it, and I don’t think about it like that, but I observe looking backwards, that I just don’t have the interest to keep doing the same thing.”

            “Even things like mother and baby photos.  I love to photograph mother and child.  I’d love to get some opportunities to do that.”

Bob Dylan in Woodstock, N.Y. with infra-red film, 1969

Photo by Elliott Landy

 

            “Have you processed your own color film?”

 

            “I experimented once.  I didn’t mind it.  It was just a lot of time and a lot of work, and I really didn’t like to spend time at work.  You know what it is again when I say, I should do only things I know only I can do.  Someone else can process and make prints.  I had a darkroom printer, a woman that worked for me 6 or 7 years in the darkroom.  She was just a better printer then I was.  I would stand next to her, she would make a proof, and I would look at it and say, ‘This is what I’m talking about but, lighter.’ I was printing it, but it was her hands and her aesthetic also.  I told her the chemistry to use.

 

 

           

Robbie Robertson and his documentary film

 

     “Robbie (Robertson) just passed away.  Can you talk about him and some of your experiences with Robbie?” I asked.

 

            “He was the point person for the Band.  When I dealt with them, it was always with Robbie.  I was friendly with the other guys.  For example, Levon and Rick had a house together after they left Big Pink. They said, ‘Man anytime you’re in Woodstock you can just crash on our couch.  Come on over, you don’t even have to call.  You’re welcome to come over and hang out.’   I had a very comfortable relationship with all of them, but any talk of business or getting our pictures right, it was always with Robbie.  And, he would always have a chuckle.  He was always chuckling about things and saw the absurdity of the way people lived, and I had a very nice relationship with him.

 

 

            “According to the documentary, Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and The Band, they all considered each other to be brothers with each other.  Can you comment on that?” I asked.

 

            “Yeah, they did an early interview with me about it.  That’s what I said to the film makers; I said they were brothers. 

 

 

 

           

           

     Elliott goes on to say in the documentary, ‘It was very clear the moment I met them who they were and what they were about.  They (The Band) were very grounded. They were very strong.  They were very secure.  They were gracious like country people are gracious, and they were totally in love with their music, and they were in love with each other.  I never saw any jealousy; I never saw any arguments.  I never saw them disagree; they were always supporting each other.  They were five brothers.  Very clearly five brothers who loved each other, and I never saw anything but that.  In the 60s, part of the rebellion was rejecting one’s elders, rejecting one’s parents.  The guys in The Band wanted to say ‘Hey, that’s not right.  We love our parents.  They worked very hard to bring us up and care for us.’  And so, they wanted to have a picture of their families in the album.”

           

     “When that film premiered at the Doc Festival in New York, I was there in the audience and Robbie was on stage with Daniel (Daniel Roher), the Director of the film and somebody asked a question about one of the pictures.  Someone said, Elliott Landy who took the picture is in the audience.  Robbie said, ‘oh wow, he was one of us.’  Robbie didn’t want to be bothered with other photographers so, Robbie let me in (allowed me to be close).  I was the only photographer Robbie would let photograph The Band.  Robbie didn’t want to deal with press and all that stuff.  Robbie said something like, he (Elliott) was a partner in crime, or something like that.   It was an acceptable phrase in those days.”

 

 

 

The film of the time

 

     “During those days what kind of film did you use?” I asked.

 

     “It was always Tri-X.  My teacher, Larry Shustak, showed me to develop it in Ilford Microphen developer, which is a re-usable developer.  He showed me how to develop it in deep tanks, and I could develop 9 rolls of film at one time.  I would shoot Tri-X at 800 ASA (instead of 400), and the Microphen would give me a much better grain.  D-76 is a horrible developer.  I could always tell a D-76 photograph because of the granular structures.   I was fortunate.  I was lucky he taught me that.  Everything I ever did with film was based on Microphen, until Kodak T-Max came out.  T-Max can be softer.  So, I started using T-Max.  I took a series of pictures. I was living with a young woman and her three-year-old child for two years and photographed them for the whole 2 years.  It developed very softly; had a feminine feel to it.”

 

 

The use of sepia toning

 

 

     “Did you do any sepia toning at that time?” I asked.

 

     “Oh yeah. I did of The Band.  The Music from Big Pink picture was my idea.  I’d gotten to know them, and I realized they were very grounded and very much old fashioned in some ways.  I’d gotten a book of Mathew Brady photographs.  I said, ‘That’s the style that they belong in.’  Those pictures were all sepia-toned pictures from that era (Mathew Brady lived between 1822-1896).  So, that picture (of the Band) was always in my mind, meant to be sepia toned.  But I didn’t have the control or the input, and so they published it in black.  When I publish it myself, it’s always in sepia tone, because I can control it.  Also, I make prints in sepia tone and black and white so someone can choose.

A sepia-toned photograph of The Band, 1969

Photo by Elliott Landy

 

 

 

 

 

Time to say goodbye

 

     Time was running out on our visit with Elliott, and I asked him to bring one of his photographs outside for me to shoot a picture of him holding it.

My photo of Elliott holding a photograph he shot for the cover of the Bands' second album

 

 

     Elliott Landy is a very kind gentleman.  We will forever be thankful for the time he allowed us and his willingness to share the wonderful stories of his career.

Selfie by CH

 

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[email protected] (Charles Hahn) https://hahnphoto.net/blog/2023/10/elliott-landy Fri, 20 Oct 2023 14:51:53 GMT
Richard Sandler https://hahnphoto.net/blog/2023/10/richard-sandler Richard Sandler

Richard SandlerRichard SandlerRichard Sandler

Photo by Charles Hahn

Richard Sandler, a street photographer and filmmaker, was born and grew up in Queens, NY.  He published his book The Eyes of the City by Powerhouse Books as well as directed and produced the documentary film The Gods of Times Square. His innovative work is part of the permanent collections at such institutions as the Brooklyn Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas.  He was awarded the New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship for photography, a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation fellowship for filmmaking, and a New York State Council on the Arts fellowship also for filmmaking.

Richard’s book contains photographs

between 1977 and September 2011

 

 

 

Catskill, New York

Saturday, September 25, 2021

11 am

 

           

Catskill is a town of roughly 11,000 people and almost 124 miles north of New York City along the Hudson River.  Cheri and I, riding in our rental car, pull up across the street from Richard’s apartment.  Richard is waiting outside for us, not far from the Rip Van Winkle Bridge which crosses the Hudson.  Richard is a tall and slender man who looks much younger than his age of 75.  He wears a black beret, jeans, hiking shoes, a pair of modern glasses, and a Leica film camera dangling down his side by a strap around his neck.   We say hello and we exchange pleasantries as Richard explains he doesn’t have too much time.  “My car is broken down and I need to jump on a train to New York City in a couple of hours to look at a new one.”

 

He invites us upstairs to his apartment on the second floor.  As we enter, we walk down a hallway to the living room.  The walls of the hallway are lined with Richard’s incredible black and white photographs he printed himself in the darkroom within the apartment.  The living room is filled with artwork and printed photographs framed on its walls.  Bookshelves filled with books line the apartment.  Under the windows that face the street, roughly 1,000 vinyl record albums are lined up on the floor with a turntable at the center. There is a couch facing the window on the opposite wall with two end tables and a saxophone on its stand off to the side.

 

            Richard is a gracious host, and the apartment is kept quite clean and tidy.  I have many questions to ask Richard, but the time seems to go quickly.  Very proud of his record collection, Richard plays a few of his records during our visit, asking many times, “What would you guys like to hear?”

 

 

Richard SandlerRichard SandlerRichard Sandler

Photo by Charles Hahn

 

 

            I glance down to see the saxophone on a stand.  “Is that another passion of yours?” I said, nodding towards the instrument.  It didn’t seem to take much prodding as the sax is swept up, and Richards starts playing.  The window is open, and he serenades a lady sitting on a bench on the opposite side of the street.  She smiles up at our window, and Richard has a look of delight in his eyes and continues to play.

 

 

 

 

 

After a while we get to talk a little bit about photography. I shoot a few photographs of Richard and he shows me his darkroom. 

Richard in his darkroom

Photo by Charles Hahn

 

 

 

 

                Time flies by and it’s time for Richard to catch his train to the city.  We drop him off at the train station in Hudson, another small town about 20 minutes north of Catskill and g the Hudson River.  We agree to a phone interview the next available weekend and say our goodbyes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Phone interview

Sunday, October 8, 2021

6:30 pm

 

 

 

“Richard, you mentioned in a YouTube video during a B & H Photo workshop that you had taken a workshop instructed by famous street photographer Gary Winnogrand.  Can you speak a bit about how that went down and is there anything you particularly remember from that time with Winnogrand?” I asked.  “When I first started photography in 1977, I was living in a house of a psychology professor named David McClelland at Harvard University.  I was with other wonderful people living in a communal situation.  We would have incredible people come over to the house to visit.  People such as Buckminster Fuller, Harvey Cox, Timothy Leary, and John Cage.  Just an unending stream of people who were sort of in the far-left, liberal intelligential community.  It was in that house that Mary, McClelland’s wife, gave me her Leica camera.  Mary had a darkroom in the basement, and she taught me how to print photographs.” 

 

“In 1977 a guy named Ben Lifson, a photography critic at the Village Voice, was teaching a one semester class at Harvard.  Ben allowed me to sit in on one of his photography classes and that’s when I learned that Gary Winnogrand was going to instruct a four-day workshop in Boston.  So, I signed up for his workshop and to my amazement there were only about seven people in attendance for the class.” 

“The first night Winnogrand gave a talk separate from the workshop at the Photographic Resource Center in Boston.  He spoke with a slide show and there were no less than five-hundred people there.  I didn’t realize what a star he was at that time.  As part of the workshop the next two days, we went out in the street as a group, shot pictures, and developed them in the darkroom each night.  We came in the next day and put our pictures on the wall.  We as a group with Winnogrand talked about pictures.  When we put our pictures on the wall, Winnogrand did not say anything most of the time.  He just looks and he walks away.  Then he looks at more and walks away again.  If he likes a picture, he would tap it with his knuckle and moves on.  No words.  A couple of the kids in the workshop got pissed off because Winnogrand wasn’t talking about pictures.  The kids wanted more direction from him: What makes a picture work? What doesn’t make a picture work and why?  But that’s not the way Winnogrand operated.  The way he operated was he tapped the picture, he tapped one of mine.  One of the other students said, ‘What does the tap mean?’  Winnogrand said, ‘I can’t tell you what that means.  All I can tell you is it’s got the energy.  It’s got the juice.’”

 

Richard goes on, “Winnogrand wasn’t playing with our heads or anything, but he was superstitious.  What Winnogrand said was ‘If I start talking about what makes a picture work, I may upset the muse or the magic, whatever you want to call it that makes this stuff work in the first place.  I only want to talk about the ones that work.  I don’t want to talk about the ones that don’t work and why.  I think it’s more helpful to say this one got the juice.  So, you go back and you look at your work and you find out for yourself. You learn yourself.’  That is all it was about and it never went beyond that,” Richard said.

 

“All pictures are about form and content.  Sometimes the form is stronger and sometimes the content is stronger.  The best pictures are the ones where the form is threatening to overwhelm the content, or the content is threatening to overwhelm the form.  Winnogrand was so articulate during his speeches, but during the workshop, he was never critiquing other people’s work.  So, when he looked at our work during the workshop there were very few pictures that got the knuckle of Winnogrand,” Richard laughs.

 

Richard SandlerRichard SandlerRichard Sandler

Photo by Charles Hahn

 

 

 

 

Photographing in the Subway

 

Richard has taken many photographs in the 1970s and 80s in the New York subway.  “Shooting on the subway as far as I was concerned was way more challenging than shooting on the street for lots of reasons,” Richard said.  “One is you can’t keep walking in a subway car.  If you take a picture, you’re trapped in the car and it’s hard to disguise what you’re doing.  You’re kind of winging it and you have to have big balls to do it.  Although, in my pictures, I’m not photographing particularly dangerous people, I’m looking for romance or something.  I’m looking for that angelic kind of moment that transcends.  The subway is just like a vehicle, where everybody is in kind of a daze.  Being underground, people are not so much aware of the time.  It’s like a nebular wall.  The subway is the bloodstream of New York where the squeaky sounds rhythm you into an hypnotic state.  Thoughts start running and your world starts flashing before your eyes.  It feels like the most honest part of New York to photograph people in.  On the street you put on airs, but in a subway, you’re just thrown into a car with a random sampling of humanity.  Each car has its sort of people and dynamic or odd juxtapositions and it’s a good place to photograph if you want to be juxtaposing people.  People are just more revealed and revealing on the train than on the street.”

 

“I wasn’t thinking of anybody’s pictures except maybe Walker Evans’s pictures.  Evans would sit on the subway with a hidden camera using a cable release where his pictures were utterly disguised.   During that time the subway was different; it was way more dangerous than it had ever been when I was photographing it.”

 

“Did anyone approach you after you shot a photo and asked you what you were doing?” I asked.  “Yes, absolutely, and I learned ways throughout the years to defuse situations.  I never got mugged or hurt on the train and evaded trouble.  In one case I had to run because a bunch of kids were surrounding me.  It was two o’clock in the morning and they were going to roll me for my camera, and I was so adrenaline-juiced that I outran them.  It was the 103rd Street stop on the Broadway line.

 

“I only got hit a couple of times, and that was on the street, not on the subway.  I got creamed by one guy, but I was able to blunt and duck most the assault.”

Photo by Richard Sandler

 

            “I have a son that I would stash with my parents, and I would get on a train and into the city. I was pretty obsessed.  But I also knew I couldn’t get hurt, and I had to watch my ass.”

 

 

Using a Strobe on the Street

 

“When did you start using your flash or your strobe while shooting on the street?” I asked.  “From day one, the people who mentored me in Boston taught me how to use the flash with a long shutter speed.  They showed me how to meter for the ambient light, bring the shutter down to maybe an 8th or a 15th, or maybe a 25th of a second for the ambient light using a shutter priority.  I only used it on dark days.  That way I could use F8 at 15th of a second for the ambient light and use a little bit of flash.  Just enough to have the foreground stand out from the background.  I would deliberately underexpose for the background.  The 25th or 8th of a second wound create blur in the background but would create utter sharpness when the flash went off, creating a ghosting.”

Photo by Richard Sandler

 

 

“How did you get acclimated to get into people’s faces with a flash?” I asked.  “I don’t know where or how, but I could do that thing.  When I think about it, it was so audacious.  I wouldn’t dare do that now.  When I first started photographing, I was in Harvard Square in Cambridge and I shot a photo of a guy and it looked so cool to me.  I thought I wanted to do this all the time.  So, I did it in Boston and when I hit the streets in New York, I did it too.  In New York I was home. I came back to my hometown.  I was a brash kid.”

 

 

            “I occasionally shot with Bruce Gilden who was originally a childhood friend of mine.  Very often we would walk around together.” I asked, “Did you both shoot flash during the same walks when you were together?”  Richard replied, “Yes, and occasionally there would be a gang-bang: He got his picture and I got mine.  We are from the same world he and I.  We were recognizing the same characters.  Bruce was very helpful to me when I moved back to New York, and he also started before me.  Bruce made some amazing pictures.  In 1973 or ‘74 Bruce made his Coney Island book which was utterly brilliant.  He introduced me to the photo world of New York in the late seventies-early eighties.

 

A Meeting with John Szarkowski at MOMA

 

            “I took my pictures to MOMA.  Probably 1984 or ‘85.   The deal was you could take your pictures to MOMA on a Monday and pick them up on a Thursday.  If they wanted any of your work for their permanent collection, they would leave a note in your portfolio case.  So, I went there to pick them up on my appointed day.  There was a lobby that accompanied the photography department.  Sitting at the receptionist desk was a woman named Susan Kaczmarek who was second in command at the photography department at MOMA or Oz.  I call it Oz because John Szarkowski and she were like the wizards of Oz.   They were the makers of popular photographers.  Particularly Szarkowski because he was like a god.  He was Oz.”

 

            “So, I approach the desk and Kaczmarek asked me my name and handed me my folder of photographs.  I turned around to leave and immediately standing behind me was John Szarkowski.  Comes up to my face and says, ‘I saw your pictures, I know who you are.  I like your pictures.’”  Richard goes on, “Szarkowski closed his eyes and shook his head once or twice.  With his eyes closed he said, ‘I liked them very much.’  He opened his eyes, looked at me, and said, ‘I hope you receive the recognition you deserve before you’re seventy years old,’ and walked away.  That comment was somewhat prophetic because here I am now, my book is published, and I’m seventy years old,” Richard quips.

 

            Richard goes on to say his style of street photography is a little late in getting to MOMA. He believes there would have been a better outcome if he applied five to ten years earlier.

 

Richard SandlerRichard SandlerRichard Sandler

 

Photo by Charles Hahn

 

 

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[email protected] (Charles Hahn) https://hahnphoto.net/blog/2023/10/richard-sandler Sun, 01 Oct 2023 11:49:42 GMT
Phil Penman https://hahnphoto.net/blog/2023/7/phil-penman Phil Penman

Phil Penman

 

A remarkable street photographer born in Briantspuddle, Dorsett, England.  Phil Penman found his way to New York City after a short tenure in Los Angeles.  Originally, Phil worked for a celebrity news agency where he covered news stories that included celebrities of all sorts. 

A graduate of the Berkshire College of Art and Design, Penman moved on to representing Leica cameras as he tours and holds workshops around the world.  You can see Phil’s incredible street scape photography on Instagram or pick up his book, Street, G Arts publishing on amazon.

 

 

 

 

Friday, June 24, 2023

4pm

 

My assistant Cheri and I are meeting with Phil at the Starbucks coffee shop on W. 15th Street just a half block from the Chelsea Market in the Meat Packing District of Manhattan.

Phil, a Tall thin man is wearing a black shirt and pants with a Yankee baseball cap on.  He carries his Leica M10 camera with him wherever he goes.  We meet, shake hands and exchange pleasantries as we find an outdoor table to sit and chat.

 

“Where are you from originally?” I asked Phil.  “Originally?  England.  Phil goes on to say he’s been here for 23 years now.  He moved over to Los Angeles and hated the place.  Got out as quickly as possible.  “It was hard to connect with people and I was flying out of the country like, every week.  It was more of a base camp.” He was working for an English press agency based in LA and it became the biggest press agency in the world by the time he finished.  Phil was employed by the agency because it was the easiest way to get a working visa which is very difficult to get.  He gave up the copyrights to his photographs for a better deal, a new car, residency, etc.

Living in New York

Phil goes on to say that he lives in a condo, “It’s like a subsidized housing for artists.  A rare artist complex as there is, maybe two such condos in the city.  You put your name on a list and you wait for fifteen years.”  He says, he’s lived there for 8 years now and loves it.  “Everyone dies there,” Phil jokes.  “They subsidize you to help you in your talent so, like Alicia Keys, Larry David and Kelsey Grammer, all these people came through the system.  A lot of them still live there as well.  Manhattan Plaza, there’s a documentary about it.  It was originally designed for luxury housing in the 70’s.  They couldn’t fill it so they found funding available to help cover the financing if they could fill it with 70% artists.  It’s a great place and you recognize half of the people there.”  Phil says he and his wife will hear singing, go out on their balcony and witness some kind of a Tony Award winning performance.

 

            Penman came into photography at fifteen years of age, because his dad was also a photographer.  He started working in the industry when he was about eighteen – nineteen.  He went to college for 4 years to study photography as well.  “I’ve been working in photography for thirty years and professionally for twenty-seven.” 

 

The difficulty of the photography business. 

 “In the news world, trying to keep a girl friend is impossible. Because you’re flying every day.  It’s not like they give you much notice.  We’re sitting here and you’ve got one hour to get to the airport.  You don’t have a personal life.  I did the agency thing for like 5 years and it’s just like, I gotta go free-lance.”

The celebrity business

 

“How did you get into the celebrity business,” I asked.  “That is what brought us into this business.  My love for being in this country was more than staying in England and, the compromise was I had to work for an agency who’s bread and butter was celebrity.  Back in the early 2000’s it was considered like the golden years.  It was a compromise and you can’t do that for long though.  It’s a horriblly tough business.”

 

            “What’s the process of celebrity photography,” I asked.  “I quit in 2015 and I was dwindling out of it.  But there it was a huge rivalry you had between People Magazine and US Weekly.  They were paying crazy money to out-bid each other for pictures that weren’t worth that much.  You may have to invest a lot of money to get these pictures.  You could sink $20,000 of your own money to getting the picture and then you got to sell it.”

 

            “How did you know a particular celebrity was going to be somewhere?”  “The majority of what you see today is set up.  The very popular celebrities would control their own publicity.  Perhaps the celebrity may not realize but, their publicist would know and they would be the ones to set it up.  It’s their job to get the publicity, to keep them in the news and keep them relevant. I worked directly with a lot of celebrities, where there was a rumor about them that they didn’t want getting out, or maybe there was a story that just came out and wanted to kill it by doing something else.  They would call me and say ‘I’m doing this, come get us some shots.’  So that process was educational.”

 

“I used to use a bicycle to get around because it was the quickest way to get around the city.  You had to be incredibly fit. You had to get the pictures you knew would sell and you had to be a salesman.  A lot on the Epstein stuff I covered, I was all over that.  It was free-lanced.  I went to free-lance in 2005, you get 50% and I was one of the disrupters of the industry where I would get rid of the agency and go direct.  You would get 100% of the money rather than giving them 50%.  It teaches you to value your work, it was hard work.” 

 

“Most of my days are teaching.  I teach for Leica.  I go all over the world for them teaching.  I’m going to be off again in a week to London teaching. I just came back from Boston and then I was in Australia.  And then my day today is I teach privately, which you can do that every single day.   People come in from other countries and they kind of want someone to guide them around New York and teach them at the same time.  So, you get a real mix.  They can be pretty wealthy or influential because the price point on these is not cheap.”

 

A couple of memorable celebrities

“Brenda Lee was one of my favorites.  About 4 years ago, (during a photo shoot) she would clear the room out.  If she thinks that she can just work with you and you know what you’re doing, she’s like, ‘can the rest of you just leave the room’?  Her husband, he comes into the room and he’s got on a pair of dungarees and he’s bare-chested with a baseball cap on backwards and a pair of glasses.  He says, ‘I’m ready for my shot.’  So, I’m like, okay both of you sit down on the counter.  He kind of looked at me dead-panned, no smiles at all.  I get their picture and he walked away in a huff.  Brenda says to me ‘good on you, he hates having his picture taken and he was trying to call your bluff and you called it’.  She ended up using the picture for their Christmas card, so it went everywhere. 

Donny Osmond was one of my favorites, he’s just a cool guy.  It’s all the older ones that have gone through the ups and downs already and now they kind of appreciate it.  Hugh Jackman once told me you guys don’t know how important you are to us.  No one is ever going to tell you this but, you are very important to us, you could make or break us.  He was the only one to actually say it, you know.”

 

Phil remembers photographer Ricky Powell

I shoot a photo of Phil with an old Minolta Hi-Matic 35mm film camera.  “This is my Ricky Powell special here,” I joked.  Greenwich village photographer Ricky Powell was very popular in lower Manhattan and known to use this model camera.  “Poor ole Ricky.  He used to hit on my wife all the time.”  Phil laughs.  “He was funny.  I used to see him walking around all the time with the radio.  It’s sad he’s gone you know.  What a character, there’s not many left.”

 

 The Minolta Hi-Matic 35mm photograph of Phil sitting outside

 Starbucks.

Photo by Charles Hahn

 

 

Software

 

“What software do you use?” I ask.  “Capture One I use.  They reached out to me about three years ago.  They asked if I could do an on-line thing for them.  I’m like, I don’t even use your software, well I better learn,” Phil quips.  “It’s a good software. They’re all good at this point.  I used to use Silver Effects.  I use black and white anyway and now I can get it all done in Capture One.  There are a lot of tools that they offer that the other ones don’t necessarily offer.  But it’s all professional like if you were tethering live shooting, that kind of thing.

 

Experience with film

 

“Have you shot much film?”  “That’s where I started, but it’s so much money now.  That was the fun part, the printing.  I was lucky I had a darkroom in our house.  My dad has a darkroom set up actually now.  With the price of film, it doesn’t make sense for me to use it.” 

 

Phil speaks of students

 

“You either got it or you don’t.  I always get asked, what makes a good photographer and I answer, the camera is really irrelevant.  Most of it comes down to experience.  There’s a lot of copying, that’s the crazy thing, when people start copying your style and it’s like, it’s supposed to come from there (Phil gestures to his head).  It’s supposed to come from what you’re feeling.

 

 

 

Admired photographers

 

“Is there anybody you kind of grew up with and admired?”  “One guy I admire is Sebastiao Salgado.  That guy’s insane.  I like Salgado, Elliott Erwitt and Arnold Newman.  They’re going to open a new store (gallery) around here and Erwitt will supposedly be the first show probably in October.  It was supposed to be open already but they’ve been taking their time with it.”

 

Talking about the road to ‘making it’

 

“How do you find your sponsors?”  “They find me.  Sometimes it’s like ‘well you have a big audience, there’s a lot of people liking your work.’  Now if the work’s good or someone likes your work, it’s gonna get out there.  I worked in the press for years so I know everyone and I know how to pitch a story although, I hated that side of the job, it taught me a lot.  Photography is probably 40% marketing as an individual.  Unless you’re lucky enough to have a good agent who’s not going to rob you.  I’m fortunate that people go to my website and they buy prints directly. 

 

There’s also a lot of politics in the game.  That is if you go with a gallery, that means the other big ones are not going to take you anymore.  So, you basically have to say no to everybody until the big one comes along.  I’ve said no about fifteen times already.  I have a rule, if they’re not a Paris Photo, that’s the big-one, then I’ll wait.  That’s like the big show for us.  I go every year just to go and see it, in mid-November.  Usually, the first or second week in November and about 5 days, three days to the public.  So, I’ll time it.  I’ll go over and teach workshops.  I’ll do like two workshops and then it basically pays for your flight and your hotel.  You don’t get rich.  I just happened to be at a Leica show.  Someone from the WhiteWall photo lab printing company recognized me and next thing you know three months later they were flying me to Norway for a campaign.  Most of the company’s I work with are all German, the publisher I’m with is German, Leica is German, WhiteWall – German.  It just ended up that way.”

 

A short walk

 

We look at the time and it’s getting late.  Phil says, “I can walk you to a cool place for photos if you would like?”  “Yes sure.” I reply.  We see a few really interesting photo opportunities.  During one of them, Phil is sitting in front of a service door with graffiti all around.  A little girl with mother in tow, photo-bombs me on her bicycle staring in a curious manner and I get that last photograph of Phil.

Photo by Charles Hahn

 

After walking a block or two further it’s time to part ways.  We say our pleasantries and goodbye’s. 

 

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[email protected] (Charles Hahn) https://hahnphoto.net/blog/2023/7/phil-penman Sat, 29 Jul 2023 10:13:20 GMT
Harry Benson https://hahnphoto.net/blog/2023/7/a-meeting-with-harry-benson Harry Benson

 

Harry Benson is a photojournalist.  At 93 years old, Harry is still a photographer who documents humanity with his heart and with a conviction to stop time and preserve a slice of history to share with the world.

 

Harry and Gigi Benson sitting outside their apartment.

Photo by Charles Hahn

 

Harry, a trained Fleet Street photographer, considered himself to be a serious journalist.  On an early January day in 1964, Harry had the intentions of going to Africa on a political assignment.  The night before, however, he received a call telling him to go to Paris instead to cover an up-and-coming band the Beatles. 

 

A couple of days later, the Beatles broke through with their concert at the Olympia Theater in Paris on January 16, 1964, and Harry was there to photograph it.  “The story had gone from a music story to a major news story.  They were a phenomenon and I was going to New York with them.” Harry later related to me.

 

 

 

Flashback

Sunday, February 9, 1964

 

 

It was the first week of February 1964, and I was 6 years old and a 1st grader at Maplemere Elementary School in Williamsville, New York, a suburb of Buffalo.  All week the kids at school were talking about a band called the Beatles and that they were going to appear on the Ed Sullivan Show. 

 

 

On Sunday evening of February 9, 1964, I was sitting at the end of my parents’ bed.  Two and a half feet away was the short dresser and on it was our 14-inch black and white television.  The Ed Sullivan Show was starting and I was adjusting the two antennae for the best reception possible.  And then, there they were: the Beatles.  The next hour changed my life, as it did for many other young people in America.  This was my introduction to long hair and rock ‘n roll.

 

 

The Beatles playing on the Ed Sullivan Show.

Photo by Harry Benson

 

Little did I know at that time, the man behind the scene photographing them, Harry Benson, would someday become the person I would idolize as much as the Beatles.

 

 

Monday June 26, 2023. 2pm.

 

The Uber driver pulls up to the apartment building on the upper east side of Manhattan.  Cheri, my assistant, and I pile out of the car after the roughly half hour drive uptown from Greenwich Village.  With a couple of photography bags and a tripod in tow, we enter the foyer area of the building where we are greeted by the doorman.

 

“May I help you?” the doorman asks. 

“Hello, I’m Charlie Hahn and this is Cheri.  We are here to see Harry and Gigi Benson.” The man reached for the phone and dialed a number, “Hello, Mr. Charlie is here. Okay.”   “Mrs. Benson said to go on up, just take the elevator right there.”  He points across the foyer.

 

After a short ride up the elevator, we knock on the apartment door and are greeted by middle-aged lady who asks us to come in.  “You can put your bags down and they should be with you shortly.”

 

            We placed our bags down off to the side and look up to see our surroundings.  We are in a living room and just steps away are windows which look outside to a terrace with a privacy fence.  Glancing around we see comfortable-looking chairs and a sofa with a coffee table where a few of Harry’s books rest.  The walls are covered with very large photographs which I recognize from photography books and magazines that I have seen many times throughout the years.  These prints include Harry’s iconic Beatles pillow fight and Mohammad Ali and the Beatles in a boxing ring.  Wow!

 

Mohammad Ali meets the Beatles.

Photo by Harry Benson

 

“Hello?” a lady’s voice calls out from a dimly lit hallway leading to the family room.  Gigi, an attractive middle-aged lady is walking towards us.  She is fairly thin with blonde shoulder length hair. 

“Hi there,” I, reply. 

“Hi, how are you?” Gigi says back.  “I’m trying to get my shoe on right.”

“Take your time.  I’m Charlie and this is Cheri.” 

“Okay, sit down.” 

“Where would you like us?” 

“Any ole chair.” Gigi says.  “You’ll do better in a chair then the couch cuz then the dogs will leave you alone better.  Okay well Harry sits there.” Gigi points to the couch, “and ya’ll sit anywhere else. I’m going to let the dogs out then.” 

“Oh, just let them out,” Cheri responds.

 

A tall slender man appears in the hallway walking towards us. 

“Harry, this is Charlie and Cheri.” 

“Well, hi there,” Cheri says. 

“Hi there, nice to meet you,” Harry replies. 

 

Two small puppies enter the room barking away trying to figure out who these visitors are.  One a light brown pug and the other a black dachshund. 

 

Smiling, Harry jokes, “These are my daughters.”

“We have four dogs, they’re like our children.” I say. 

“You have?”

“How was England, did you enjoy it?  You had a gallery show there in England and I hope it was successful.” 

“Yeah, I did, well I’m from Scotland.” Harry replied with his Scottish accent.  “Yeah,” Harry said. “Well, they told me it was nice and that’s good enough.”

“Is that a pug?” Cheri points to the little puppy. 

“She’s a rescue from Korea.” Gigi says.  “Our daughter rescued her.  The pug is Daisy and the dachshund is Tilly.  Tilly jumps up onto Harry’s lap on the couch.  Harrys face lights up. “This is my daughter.”

 

Harry with Tilly

Photo by Charles Hahn

 

 

“It makes your whole life them dogs.  I mean, I’ve always had a dachshund.  They’re all replacements,” Harry jokes. 

Almost Hijacked

 

Gigi talks about the problems of leaving your dogs when go away, and she recalls what happened to Harry on one of his trips, “Harry had to go down the chute.  His plane got hijacked one time.  They actually shot that guy.  A sharp shooter did.”

 

“Where were you traveling to?” I ask Harry. 

“Chicago or LA.”  

“The guy wanted to go to Italy to see his girlfriend,” Gigi says. 

“The guy was nuts, you know.  There were a lot of hijackings in the 70s.  We were at the runway and I saw a man come up to the captain’s cabin with a gun.  Then the pilot says, ‘There’s going to be a delay because a gentleman on board doesn’t want to go Chicago.’  And they went and killed the bastard.  He asked to go to Milan and they told him he couldn’t go to Milan.  If he actually thought it, it means he was really a head case,” Harry said of the potential hijacker.

 

 Ron Galella's book party

 

Gigi kindly passes out hot tea and chocolate chip cookies. 

“Thanks, so much, this is very nice.” I say.

“Do not let the dogs eat the cookies.”  We all chuckle.

Gigi asks, “Were you at Ron Galellas’ last birthday party?”

“No, we went to visit Ron in October of 2021.” I reply.  

 

“Were you at his book party?”  Gigi adds, “Harry and I were there.  We went with Staley-Wise people.  We’ve never been out there before, it’s way out.  At his house every single picture was up,” Gigi notes. 

“Did you photograph him?” Harry asks.

“Yeah, they’re such nice people.  Ron is a real delight to be around.  Kathy (Ron’s assistant) was great too,” I add.

“Did you happen to see Harry’s documentary?  Well, something Ron said in the documentary is that Harry got invited to all the events, and Ron had to crash them all.”

“Have you run into Ron out there in the world while working?” I ask. 

“I ran into him and we had a drink a couple of times, you know?” Harry adds, “Have you ever seen a celebrity being chased up the road by a photographer? You know it’s not a pretty site. It’s a horror show, a little bit demented.  He didn’t mind running in front of people.”

“What did you always say that Jackie Kennedy should have done?” Gigi says to Harry.  “You always said Jackie should have just sat still for a few minutes and let him have all the photos he wanted.” 

“She’s famous, what the heck,” Harry replies. “You had to be a bit touched to do that.  It’s crazy.  Magazines used it though and they paid for it, you know.”

 

Harry relaxing with Daisy

Photo by Charles Hahn

 

Film and Life Magazine

 

We started discussing the old days and the use of film while photographing the Beatles pillow fight.  “We shot film and went to digital in 2000.  Film just kind of disappeared the same as you right?  We really didn’t think about it,” Harry says.

Gigi notes, “By the time Harry started working for Life, they had this huge lab.  They did it all.  They did the developing and the contact sheets, and the color developing.” 

“I prefer black and white,” Harry adds.  “120mm with the Rolleiflex or a Hasselblad.  Pointing up to the Beatles pillow fight photo on the wall, “That’s a Rollei and that’s a Rollei.”  Harry points to the photo of Mohammad Ali with the Beatles.

 

The Beatles Pillow Fight

Photo by Harry Benson

 

A moment with the Beatles

 

“In the pillow fight I was there alone in the room with them.  The strobes were better back then they are now, they were more powerful and it was able to stop the action.  That would be at about F8 you know, about 125th.  The pillow fight went on for nearly 2 rolls of 12 exposures.  I wanted it on a Rolleiflex because it’s a quick shutter and it’s a real. . . .  I wanted it square (The format of a Rolleiflex is 6 x 6).  The Rolleiflex is a great camera.  It gave me a career, it gave me money, you know.  It’s just a better camera.”

 

The process of film and Life Magazine
 

“Harry, when you were on the road for an assignment, what was your process to get the photos back to Life Magazine?” I ask.

 “While on an assignment for Life Magazine, sometimes I sent the film in. Sometimes I had to develop and print it and wire it from my bedroom (hotel room).  I put the enlarger on the lavatory seat.  When you finish it and dry them off, you know the chemicals, I’m sure that some people could smell it.  Once that you were finished, you really didn’t care.  Sometimes I had to wire it to London.  I didn’t enjoy doing it because it was hard and you go to transmit, people can get on your phone and mess it up.  It’s hard work. It’s hellish.  I would take it to AP if I could get away with it.  If I didn’t want them to know.  It would really make a difference because there were so many places it was going out to.”

 

 

“Were you employed by Life Magazine?” 

“Yes.” 

“Did you lose any rights to your pictures at any time?” 

“No, no.  That’s one thing. It was yours and you could pick them up whenever you wanted.  Some people left their photographs with them (Life).  I didn’t want them to be left there so anybody could use them.  I used the Rolleiflex more than anything else.  I’m glad I did that with the Rolleiflex.”  Harry points to the Beatles pillow fight photograph on the wall. 

 

“Did you have a backup camera or an extra with you?”

 “It’s a very good point because you can take too much with you.  It’s a pain in the ass.  I would take the Rolleiflex, 2 Nikons and 5 lenses. Photography was good for me.  I don’t know what I would have done if I had to work for a living.  I felt fortunate. It’s what we could do and get away with.  I was probably about 16 when I picked up the camera for the first time.  I knew it was the only way I could go.”

 

  “When you were young did you ever imagine doing what you’ve done, or were you thinking of being a doctor or something else?”

“I knew I wasn’t going to be anything important.”

“No, no doctor,” Gigi quips.  Gigi goes on to say, “I tell you at one point I thought that what I should have done rather than go to graduate school was go to law school.  Photographers need a lawyer or somebody to explain to them what copyright infringement is and how to sign those contracts when they send them over.

 

A very hectic lifestyle

 

When sent on assignments by Life Magazine Harry had to leave home at the spur-of-the-moment.  “It was always important to get on it quick. You didn’t want any delays. And you wanted to beat the bastards.  The ones (people) I was going to photograph knew I was coming.  I didn’t have the newspapers or the magazines do my booking of the planes.  They would fly me second or third class or, 200 class.  Simple as that.  They were going to pay for it anyway, you know.  So, Gigi would book all of my flights.”

Gigi adds, “We would be having Christmas dinner and the phone would ring, Harry would finish his meal and get on a plane to go do a job.  There are more disasters around holidays than any other time.”

“Disasters always happen around holidays,” Harry says.  “And you don’t take your wife on an assignment.” 

“Harry would always tell me: bankers don’t take their wives to the office.  Before we got married, he would take me on assignments and after we got married, I wouldn’t go on another one.” 

Harry says, “I couldn’t leave her to be taken.” 

 

Gigi remembers, “There’s two racing (horse racetracks) tracks here, Aqueduct and Belmont.  Harry had an assignment to photograph Secretariat.  I took him to the one that was empty and there was one guy sweeping up.  And I asked him where Secretariat was and he said he was at the other one (track).  We drove there got there at the end of this thing.  He still got a picture.”

“I got him as he walked off. it was at the finish of the race.  He looked like a cocker spaniel.  Head way down.”

 

“One time Harry was really close (from another assignment) when Martin Luther King died, he was in a town close by for some other job and he just hopped on a quickly and got there.  He knocked on the door of the room and Jose Williams was in there and he was mopping up blood and squeezing into a jar.  Harry got there when nobody else got there.  He was like an hour away.  Within an hour he was in the room. It was like that fast.

 

Ethel Kennedy moments after Robert Kennedy was shot

 at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, June 5, 1968

Photo by Harry Benson

 

Bobby Kennedy

 

On June 5, 1968 right after Bobby Kennedy had finished speaking at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.  “Bobby said to me when walking away, ‘Harry, Harry, I’ll see you in Chicago.’ I turned to walk one way and then he got shot.  Ethel was screaming up at me.  You can’t fail, I had to do my job, you know.  I do what I can.  She’s screaming and nobody knows what to do, and Bobby died.  I’m friends of the Kennedys.”

 

A gallery show

 

“How many pictures do you typically have in a gallery show?” I ask. 

“You have to have at least 12 pictures that you absolutely like.  Ones that only you could have taken.  You know what I mean?  Twelve and that can get you by.  When someone criticizes you., you don’t want to talk to the bastard.  The piece of shit. Let’s go outside.  I like New York.  Nobody bothers you unless you want them too. I’ve had a Dachshund all my life.  Ever since I was 3 years old.  One thing about the Dachshunds is that they don’t smell.  I smell but not the dogs.” 

“I haven’t noticed yet,” I joked. 

 

 “We’ve had Tilly about 11 years and she doesn’t like us discussing her age.  I’ve always had a Dachshund.  The main thing about a terrace is she can come out here and have a piss whenever she wants. I don’t have to take her down on the street.  I just have to come out and pick up her shit.  Isn’t that right, Tilly?  I just take them out and they can do what they like. They can stay for 10 minutes, 20 minutes they can come in and I know, they can jump into my bed and not gonna pee on me. It’s very handy having a terrace. I can talk to myself and the dogs.”

 

“It’s nice to meet you.” Harry says to me. 

“It’s nice to meet you too.”

 

Time to leave and we have a two-puppy escort out of the Benson’s apartment door, and Daisy and Tilly run to the elevator.  “Hey you guys come back here,” Gigi says sternly. 

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Here I am photographing Harry and Daisy.

Photo by Cheri Swanson

 

 

To find more out about Harry Benson check out his website at https://harrybenson.com/
 

 

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[email protected] (Charles Hahn) Benson Harry https://hahnphoto.net/blog/2023/7/a-meeting-with-harry-benson Fri, 14 Jul 2023 13:12:13 GMT
Ron Galella, rock star of photographers https://hahnphoto.net/blog/2021/12/ron-galella-rock-star-of-photographers A rock star of photographers

 

Ron Galella shot many photographs of famous celebrities.  But he, himself is a celebrity i.e. paparazzo superstar, and rock star of photographers.

    

Galella, now at 90, is still doing what he loves most, photography.  "I'm a workaholic, my 22nd book is coming out, '100 Iconic Photographs.'"  "Next year I'm doing the decade of the eighties."

This is an account of my time with Ron Galella at his suburban mansion in Montville, New Jersey.  A mansion so amazing it could double as a museum to Galellas' lifelong work as a paparazzi photographer whose collection contains more then a million photographs of famous celebrities he has taken.

Noon, Monday October 11, 2021

Our fifty-five minute drive comes to an end.  One which starts at the Gramercy district in Manhattan and finishes in the town of Montville, New Jersey.  Hau, our Uber driver pulls up to a white neo-classical  mansion which, looks something out of a Godfather movie.  It is no surprise that once an HBO scout showed up interested in renting the house as Tony Sopranos' home.  One thing that didn't agree with HBO's decision makers' was the pool in the backyard had been filled in and replaced with a rabbit cemetery.  The rabbits have been Ron and Betty (Ron's wife) Galellas' pet of choice for many years.

With a camera bag thrown over each shoulder, Cheri (my assistant) and I slowly walk along the sidewalk and turn up the driveway towards the front entrance.  We pass by a mailbox in the shape of a rabbit.  A white marble fountain lead our eyes to columns framing the front door.  Many small rabbit statues are scattered about the property.  At the base of the stairs, a concrete slab appears with a pair of handprints, a sweeping signature and the date, July 26, 2008.  The slab is in the style similar to something you would find in front od Grauman's Chineese Theater in Los Angeles.

My photograph of the slab outside the front door

We walk up the stairs and at 11:59am, I push the doorbell.  I suddenly realize my lifelong journey has taken me here, to New Jersey.  In front of the home of the man who has given me a lifetime of inspiration.

Rewind

Mid-September, 2008

I'm standing in front of the magazine rack at the local Barnes and Noble bookstore in the small city of Winston Salem, NC., my hometown.  Leafing through a New York Magazine which caught my eye.  The September 22, 2008 issue.  On the cover, "Jackie and Me," "Paparazzo Ron Galella and the birth of modern celebrity," by Emily Nussbaum.

New York Magazine, September 22, 2008

The article had me hooked.  Talking about the antics of this celebrity photographer.  His prints have found their way to The MOMA and Staley-Wise Galleries in New York while his books are praised in The New York Times.  But, along the way there were some interesting hurdles and bumps in the road.  In 1973, Marlon Brando punched out five of Galellas' teeth in an incident which settled out of court.  Brando himself needed healthcare as his hand became infected from the punch.  During the disco years Steve Rubell twice threw Galella out of Studio 54.  Richard Burton once sent his goons to steal film out of Galellas' camera.  Bridget Bardot had her boyfriend hose him down.  Frank Sinatra once yelled, "You wop, you get permission."  And, Jaqueline Kennedy Onasis told her secret service to, 'smash his camera.'  This happening along with three law suits but, resulted in one of Galellas' most famous photographs, Windblown Jackie.

Ron's' Windblown Jackie

 

In his younger days, Ron took acting classes at the Pasadena Playhouse, not to become an actor but, to act like one.  "I went to overcome my shyness and fear with dealing with people, and it helped."  He prided himself on his cleverness of breaking into environments.  He wore wigs, glasses, hats and even faked credentials.

When Ron started he found out he could get $1000 for photos of Elizabeth Taylor or the Lemon Sisters, from magazines such as, Modern screen, Photoplay and The national Inquirer.  Galella claims, Those who would judge a paparazzi are the same ones to gobble up their images."

He met and married his wife Betty in 1978 when Ron was 48 and Betty 31.  Galella claims he never married before because he was dedicated to his work.  Betty unfortunately passed away January 9, 2017 after a long illness.  Reading the article on Galella I, specifically remember these events happening as they made the news during the 60's and 70's.  As a young inspiring photographer I was mesmerized.

Back to

Noon, Monday, October 11, 2021

Cheri and I are standing at the front door when it opens.  Two ladies greet us.  "Hi Charlie, I'm Kathy and this is Grace, won't you come in?"  Grace smiles and says hello. She is of Asian descent and I have the impression she is Ron's' health care assistant. Kathy is a slender attractive lady who has been Ron's' assistant for over 30 years.

As we enter the foyer, I can't help but notice the large black and white portraits on stands lining the room.  Another stand has Ron's self-made paparazzo jacket.  The 35mm Nikon camera he used and the famous football helmet he made as a joke to follow Marlon Brando around after the famous 'punch to the mouth.'  Kathy turns out to be a wonderful hostess as she guides us through the mansion.  "You wanna put your equipment down there on the love seat and I'll show you around."  As I put my camera bags on the large red "S" shaped love seat we couldn't help but notice the enormous living room.  Every wall is covered with large portraits of famous celebrities such as John Lennon, David Bowie, Mick Jagger, Frank Sinatra and Jaqueline Kennedy Onasis.  This impressive room is topped off with a very tall cathedral ceiling and many windows allowing tons of natural light to enter.

We enter the Andy Warhol room, and another room Kathy introduces as Ron's office.  Kathy explains, "This is Ron's office and was a dining room at one time.  All of the things here are fairly new.  Ron wanted to report his life in pictures."  The walls are covered with famous magazine covers with Ron's' photographs.  Another wall dedicated to his wife Betty, "Who passed away a few years ago."  There is a portrait of Ron holding his famous photograph of Windblown Jackie, by Tim Mantoani.  Other photographs include, Ron standing behind Jackie Kennedy Onasis holding a tape measure and one of Ron standing behind Marlon Brando with his football helmet on.

We start up a winding staircase, passing by statues of rabbits.  Kathy mentions, "Ron no longer has rabbits but, we do have a couple of cats, they are bothers."  As we get to the top of the stairs Kathy says, "Ron decided a few years ago in case he passed away he wanted to have a whole library of photographs that were signed by him."  When asked how many photos are signed up stairs, she answered, "Thousands of photographs are signed."

Back downstairs and into the basement which seconds as a large office area where the business is run.  We meet a young man sitting in front of a computer.  "This is Nick my co-worker," Kathy says.  Nick greats us warmly and we exchange pleasantries.  Downstairs there are thousands of stored unsigned photographs, slides and negatives all carefully labeled and filed away in boxes, envelopes and cabinets.  We walk through a small room where an old film enlarger sits on a counter top.  Kathy describes this as Ron's old darkroom which he doesn't really use anymore  due to the advancement of the digital world.

We walk up to the main floor, turn the corner to enter the living room and Ron is there waiting for us.  At 90 years old Ron Galella is looking very well.  A fine gentleman and a mind as sharp as a tack, showing a wonderful personality and sense of humor.  "I'm alright, for 90 I'm pretty good.  Galella continues,  "I'm a workaholic."  "My 22nd book is coming out, 100 Iconic Photographs.  "Next year I'm gonna do the decade of the 80's."  "I go through my files.  What I'm doing right now is going through my color slides  and picking more pictures that were overlooked."  "I'm giving them to my agency, Getty."  "I'm making money each month with them with old stuff. I'm giving them more good stuff that was overlooked."  So I'm keeping busy doing that."  "You gotta keep busy, you live longer.  Especially if you do something you love."

Ron looks at the wall in front of him.  "That's my wife, see?"  "She was a big asset.  When I married her she expanded my agency.  Hired other photographers,  Before it was just me, and she became a photographer too."  "In fact, there's one of John Junior."  Ron points to a photo shot by his wife Betty of, John Kennedy Junior.  "You see those are her pictures of John Junior.  She out did me."  Ron smiles and we chuckle at his comment.  "I was lucky to marry her, cuz she was a country girl."  "You see country girls get gobbled up." "Here in a big city, they get taken."  "Country girls they're like preserved.  Preserved for me."  Ron giggles and we laugh at his comment.

Ron hasn't always lived in Montville.  "We've lived here since 1992,  She (Kathy) found this house.  She saw an ad in the paper and that's how we found it."  "We lived in Yonkers.  It was a two family house and we moved.  We had too many pictures.  You would pull up and the car was left outside."  I asked Kathy if she was with Ron in Yonkers during those times.  "She's (Kathy) been with me for 30 years." Ron stated.  "I was at their wedding , My Daughter was their flower girl.  A lot of  good memories," Kathy answered.

 

Before the internet and modern amenities

 

Before digital photography and the existence of the internet there was a lot of running around and footwork in getting the product to their customers.  When asked how things were done in the past Kathy says, "I can tell you that, because I was there when it happened.  So, what would happen was, today is Monday.  I would come to work, I would get all the newspapers and I would look for events.  We also got what was called The Celebrity Bulletin.  So, I would gather all the same that day for events happening and I would print all out for Ron.  If there was something he needed to be invited to, I would call the people to try to get him invited.  But mostly, he would just go.  So we'd say, oh we read Mick Jagger is going to be performing at Madison Square Garden and staying at the Carlyle Hotel.  So we would write that down.  There were no cell phones then so, he would take that note with him and go through the process of knowing like, where to go first from that list.  If he could he (Ron) would go the whole day and night.  He would come back.  He would develop the film.  He would print his contact sheets and photographs.  Sometimes we had printers that would help.  Like he'd say, 'here print these.'  Otherwise he would print them himself.  He would print the film, they would have to go through the chemicals, da da da.  Then they would have to go through the dryer.   Then once everything was dry then they would have to be stamped on the back with his name.  They would have to be captioned, he would have to caption them.  You know if we were using word, or whatever it was.    Then we would tape the captions on the back.  Then, so you would have a pile of maybe ten of Jagger, ten of Cher and ten of who ever it was.  So, he had clients he would send to everyday, Time, Newsweek, The New York Post, The daily News, umm, and there were European publications." 

"There were usually about ten envelopes that had everybody's name on it.  Then he would sort them out like this (Kathy makes a motion with both hands as if she were dealing cards out).   Get 'em all in the envelopes and then we had a girl, Kelly, and sometimes there were other people.  She would come to the office.  She would take all the envelopes.  I would drive her to the subway and she would hand deliver them.  That was when I was there."

"Before I was there and he (Ron) was fairly new, he used to take them himself.  There were fan magazines like Modern Screen, something like that.  He would print the contact sheets from the negatives.  He would then bring it, cuz he was new.  He would bring it to the fan magazines and say, 'pick the pictures you want.'  There were several he would go to, and once they picked it he would go back and he would print those.  Then he would deliver them back.  And, the whole cycle would start over again.  You know the next day you would read all the newspapers.  And then some people would call us and say something was happening.   You know, you should be at this event.  But, yeah those days were a lot of fun because I used to go into Manhattan with him and shoot with him because I was a Mick Jagger fan.  If he was gonna be down there and he's (Jagger) still going."

Were there any celebrities who wanted to be known by getting Ron's attention?  "Not so much contact Ron but, they knew after a while Ron became really well known they knew that if Ron shot them that their picture was going to be in the paper the next day.  So yeah, they might spend a little extra time.  There were a lot of celebrities who would call out like, Dustin Hoffman loved Ron and he would see Ron and pose and he would always do funny things for Ron.  There were quite a few celebrities who knew.  Suzanne Summers loved Ron.  As a matter of fact I think her house burned down and they called to get pictures cuz a lot of her stuff was destroyed and want to get photos for memory sake."

My sitting with Ron

"I see you brought some equipment, would you like to take some pictures?"  Kathy asked.  As it was, I brought with us my digital Nikon, and a couple of film cameras as, I love to shoot medium format film.  A Mamiya RB67 and my Rolleiflex twin lens reflex camera.  Not knowing how much time I would have, I wanted to make sure I had enough film with me.  Ron was very generous with his time and told us many stories of his experiences as he posed for my camera.

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The above photo was taken by Cheri of me shooting Ron's picture

Below is the resulting photograph

"Ron, was there anyone particularly difficult to photograph?"  "Yes, once I was with my Nephew and we were shooting photos of Madonna (August 29, 1986) and at the time her husband Sean Penn," Ron said.  Kathy added, "They ate in a restaurant, then you guys followed them (to where Madonna was living at the time on W. 64th Street) into Madonna's courtyard."  "Once they got into the courtyard with a couple of photographers stepping into it, Sean Penn said, 'you stepped on private property and you can't do that,'" Ron said.  "And he attacked my Nephew.  I got a couple of pictures of them  In the pictures you can't see his face but, you can see the attack."  "That's unbelievable," Cheri said.  "That's definitely someone who could use anger management."  "He (Penn) was really the only one that was a pain in the ass," Ron said.  "Oh and Marlon Brando", added Kathy.

Ron's photo of Penn punching his Nephew, Anthony Savignano

 

As I was shooting photos, I stepped closer to Ron.  "I never got too close."  Ron says light heartedly.  "To me when you get to close you get distortion.  Unless you want to exaggerate like, Jimmy Durante has a big nose, you can come close to make it bigger."  We laughed.

My photographs of Ron on a filmstrip

 

Cheri looks up and points, "Wow and here is Bruce Springsteen and there is Elvis."  Kathy says, "The John Travolta one was taken right in Yonkers, NY., right on the cusp, before he was famous.  He was known for Welcome Back Cotter.  Then he was in Bus Stop in a touring group with Brian Denehy and Anita Gillette in Yonkers at a small theater.  Within a year he shot up to stardom in Saturday Night Fever."

"What about the Princess Diana picture?" Cheri asked.  "How was she to photograph?"  "Well, I only got her a few times, she was hardly here."  "She was easy", Kathy says.  "She was used to it right?"  "Yeah, yeah." Ron said.

 

Kathy shot this photo of Ron and I

 

"Were there harder places than others to get into to shoot," I asked Ron.  "Oh yeah." Ron said.  "I used to sneak through the kitchen."  "Like the AFI (American Film Institute), an annual event with big stars.  I'd get in through the kitchen and get pictures, where Betty Davis was honored.  The biggest event was James Cagney, (March 13, 1974, Second Annual American Film Institute Lifetime Achievement Awards Honoring james Cagney at the Century Plaza Hotel), the biggest stars were there."  "A jealous photographer, Scott Downie reported me to security.  He said, Galella sneaked in here.  The security said, no he's alright because, George Stevens Jr. (founder of The American Film Institute) allowed me to sneak in.  Because I got published.  I published the pictures.  So he always allowed me to sneak in." Ron said.

"James Cagney was my biggest event.  That's where I got my great picture of John Lennon and David Bowie."  "This one right here." Ron points to a photo on the wall in the living room.  "It's in my new book 100 Iconic Photographs."  "This one here," Ron points to a photo of John Lennon and Mick Jagger, "That's the cover of my new book."  "That's my second best seller.  My best seller is Windblown Jackie (taken October 7, 1971 on Madison Avenue) which is up there."  Ron points up to the photograph.  "The John Lennon and Mick Jagger picture, That's May Pang (Lennon's girlfriend at the time), the back of her head.  That was available light at the James Cagney honors."

Ron's photo of John Lennon and Mick Jagger

 

"May Pang came here because someone is doing a documentary about her called, The Lost Weekend," Kathy states.  "That's what, at some point John Lennon referred to it.  I think they spent maybe about a year together."  "They came to interview Ron because of that picture.  I guess there were very few photos of John with May.  John and Mick really didn't know Ron was photographing them."  Ron says to Kathy, "When do we see the documentary?"  "I know well, it's not out yet."  Kathy says.  "I don't know where it is but, I'm gonna contact him once again I talked to him a couple of months ago, Richard Kaufman, and he said the documentary was done and they were shopping it around.  So we're waiting to see it on Netflix or somewhere.  But, so far, nothing."  "She (May) was very sweet and posed with Ron."

"Yoko told John like, I'm giving you a hall pass and, he took advantage of it.  He met up with May and, according to May it was a loving relationship.  Because it lasted for some time that Yoko said, (Kathy laughs) the hall pass has expired."

 

I walked over to my tripod and adjusted the Mamiya RB that was waiting for me.  Kathy said, "Another great camera, you have great cameras."  "I just love to play around a little bit, love shooting black and white," I said.  "Yep, that's our favorite." Kathy said.

One of many I have shot of Ron

 

Cheri asks Ron, "What was your favorite event?"  "Well the James Cagney event was probably the best and it drew the most stars.  But, also the Met Gala.  Every year that was good and I did a book on that."  Ron answered.  "It's somewhere around here." Ron looks around the love seat where his books are spread out like a display.  "Cheri says, " I would love seeing photos of The Met Gala.  I mean that was just so over the top."  "Well, we'll give you one of these books.  You'll have every year," Kathy said.  "Sadly this is the first year in fifty years that Ron did not shoot it."  "In years past I was allowed to stand behind Ron to make sure he was okay.  This year they said no one else could stand with him and, this was like five hours more and with a mask."  Ron says, "Yeah I didn't feel like doing it.  I was afraid of getting the virus."

Ron and Kathy

 

I walked up to the balcony and shot photos looking down into the living room.  At this time Ron, with his digital SLR was shooting photos of me shooting photographs of him.  "Kathy, would you like to get in one?"  "Uh," Kathy makes a face.  "I'm not like you." she says to Ron.  I'm not a ham like you." Ron laughs.  I came downstairs from the balcony starting to pack up my equipment.  Kathy holds up Ron's Nikon 35mm camera and says, "Oops, it looks like this fell off."  She holds the film rewind knob.  "Can you fix this Charlie?"  "Sure let me take a look."  It screws back on to top of the camera.  "There it just unscrewed itself."  "Okay, thanks so much."

My shot of Ron from the balcony

 

I pack up my equipment while we chit chat before our ride back to the hotel.  Hau, our Uber driver agreed to wait for us.  I bend down to shake Ron's hand, "Thank you so much Ron, you're a good man Ron."  Ron smiles and says, "Please send us the shots you got today."  "I surely will," I respond.  Cheri offers her hand to Ron.  Ron smiles and says, "Goodbye my Cheri ami amour", and giggles as we leave.

 

 

    

 

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[email protected] (Charles Hahn) https://hahnphoto.net/blog/2021/12/ron-galella-rock-star-of-photographers Sat, 25 Dec 2021 19:25:03 GMT
ASRT Magazine August/September 2021 https://hahnphoto.net/blog/2021/8/asrt-magazine-august/september-2021 I am very humbled by an article written about me and my project of helping the homeless community in and around my hometown of Winston Salem, NC.  This if from the medical diagnostic magazine, The ASRT Magazine August/September 2021.  Please check it out.

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[email protected] (Charles Hahn) https://hahnphoto.net/blog/2021/8/asrt-magazine-august/september-2021 Thu, 19 Aug 2021 19:21:15 GMT
"Complexities and Nuances of the Human Spirit" at Artworks Gallery https://hahnphoto.net/blog/2021/4/-complexities-and-nuances-of-the-human-spirit-at-artworks-gallery I am very excited to share my photographs at the Artworks Gallery at 6th and Trade Streets in Winston Salem.  The photographs are a project called, "Complexities and Nuances of the Human Spirit."  It encompasses street photographs from the humorous point of view to the serious.  Opening weekend will be during the Gallery Hop on Friday May 7th from 7-9pm.  If you're unable to make the opening the photographs will be showing through May.

I hope to see you there!

https://www.artworks-gallery.org/exhibitions/may-2021-charles-hahn-katherine-mahler/
 

 

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[email protected] (Charles Hahn) and Complexities Human Spirit Nuances of the https://hahnphoto.net/blog/2021/4/-complexities-and-nuances-of-the-human-spirit-at-artworks-gallery Sat, 24 Apr 2021 11:17:16 GMT
At the very begining https://hahnphoto.net/blog/2019/10/at-the-very-begining As a child of about 10 years old I scanned through a box of photographs my father took.  When I came across this photo I was mesmerized.  Our dog Blackie.  I could see her personality come through.  It was this very photograph that when I saw it I knew I wanted to shoot photos.

 

 

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[email protected] (Charles Hahn) https://hahnphoto.net/blog/2019/10/at-the-very-begining Sun, 06 Oct 2019 15:24:01 GMT
A successful opening at The Aperture Theater https://hahnphoto.net/blog/2018/10/a-successful-opening-at-the-aperture-theater I am very humbled that so many people attended the opening of my "Beyond the Edge of the Fields" exhibit at Aperture Theater in Winston Salem.  The exhibit opened on Thursday September 20th and will remain showing until November 4th, 2018.  Here are some photos from the opening on the 20th.

 

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[email protected] (Charles Hahn) Aperture Arts Beyond Edge Fields of Opening Sawtooth School The Theater Visual https://hahnphoto.net/blog/2018/10/a-successful-opening-at-the-aperture-theater Sat, 06 Oct 2018 12:22:34 GMT
Thankful Donations from Carolina Neurosurgery and Spine in GSO https://hahnphoto.net/blog/2018/8/thankful-donations-from-carolina-neurosurgery-and-spine-in-gso I recently excepted a very large donation of clothes, food and necessities from Carolina Neurosurgery and Spine Associates in Greensboro.  A special thank you to Administrator Robin Young and the Staff at CNSA GSO.  Also Thank you, Cindy Hudson, Kim Poteat, Maggie Bain and Orren Falk.

These items have all been distributed to The homeless individuals I have come to learn about that last couple of years.

 

Thank you!!

 

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[email protected] (Charles Hahn) https://hahnphoto.net/blog/2018/8/thankful-donations-from-carolina-neurosurgery-and-spine-in-gso Sun, 19 Aug 2018 16:03:29 GMT
Beyond the Edge of the Fields will exhibit September 20th through November 4th, 2018 https://hahnphoto.net/blog/2018/8/beyond-the-edge-of-the-fields-will-exhibit-september-20th-through-november-4th-2018
A few years ago I started a project of photographing people who are normally ignored and considered off the grid: the homeless of Winston Salem.  This project entitled Beyond the Edge of the Fields was inspired by studying the works of legendary street photographers.

In cooperation with Reynolda House Museum of Art, The Aperture Theater of Winston Salem and The Sawtooth School of Visual Arts, Beyond the Edge of the Fields will be exhibiting September 20th through November 4th 2018 at The Aperture Theater.  The opening on Thursday September 20th from 5-6:30pm

Beyond the Edge of the Fields is a visual representation of a relationship that grew from casual photography of strangers to trusting relationships developed over time through twice weekly deliveries of food, clothing and other necessities.  This trust enabled me to get to know how they got to this point in their lives, what their dreams were when they were young, who they are now and what demons have followed them through out their life journeys.

These moving images represent the people beyond the street corners, revealing intimate details of those who live in between the lines of our society.

Please come out to the opening to meet with me, ask about the project, and enjoy the photographs, food and camaraderie.  I'll have a book available and the framed photographs are for sale with 100% of the sales going to these homeless individuals.

 

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[email protected] (Charles Hahn) https://hahnphoto.net/blog/2018/8/beyond-the-edge-of-the-fields-will-exhibit-september-20th-through-november-4th-2018 Fri, 03 Aug 2018 23:00:02 GMT
Street Portrait Workshop August 8th and 14th, 2018 https://hahnphoto.net/blog/2018/6/street-portrait-workshop I am honored to be asked by The Sawtooth School of Visual Arts to offer a workshop entitled Street Portraits.

Street Portraits is a two-part workshop representing a unique opportunity to dive into the world of street portraiture.  After a brief overview of the styles of famous street photographers, we will work on nurturing your own style of photographing people in public places. Also, we will discuss different techniques of photographing on the street as well as the rewards of getting out of your comfort zone. 

The workshop will be on consecutive Tuesdays August 8th and 14th, 2018 from 6:30-8:30pm.  Please visit The Sawtooth School for Visual Arts at the following link;  https://www.sawtooth.org/classes/photo-1/street-portraits

This class comes on the heals of my ongoing project, Beyond the Edge of the Fields, which can be viewed at https://www.hahnphoto.net/homeless

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[email protected] (Charles Hahn) portrait street workshop https://hahnphoto.net/blog/2018/6/street-portrait-workshop Sun, 03 Jun 2018 01:20:09 GMT
No end in sight for "Beyond the Edge of the Fields". https://hahnphoto.net/blog/2018/1/no-end-in-sight-for-beyond-the-edge-of-the-fields Over a year ago I started a project of photographing people who are normally ignored and considered off the grid, the homeless. This project entitled Beyond the Edge of the Fields was inspired by studying the works of famous and legendary street photographers from days past.  Although, this project has no real end in sight, I hope to display these very moving photographs in a public forum in 2018.

During the process of repeated visits to these homeless individuals, I began to learn many things about them. Including, how they got to this point in their life, what their dreams were when they were young. What demons have followed them throughout their lives and what their goals and inspirations are for their future.

My visits began to increase to once or twice a week. Taking them food, clothing and necessities in which for them to have some sort of decent existence. The real problem can hardly be remedied by one individual. However, one individual can help in making it possible for a person to have hope to make it through another day, another week and a month to ultimately get the proper help they need to change their lives.

My circle of homeless friends grew in number, making it very difficult for me to properly divide up my time and expenses to continue on my journey. Therefore, I reached out to my personal circle of friends and coworkers for help. With an overwhelming response I have learned what huge hearts my friends and people in the Winston Salem community have.

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[email protected] (Charles Hahn) https://hahnphoto.net/blog/2018/1/no-end-in-sight-for-beyond-the-edge-of-the-fields Sat, 27 Jan 2018 22:02:23 GMT
The 2017 National Photography Competition and Exhibition at The Soho Photo Gallery, July 6th https://hahnphoto.net/blog/2017/7/the-2017-national-photography-competition-and-exhibition-at-the-soho-photo-gallery I recently returned from NYC where, I attended the opening of The 2017 National Photography Competition and Exhibit at The Soho Photo Gallery in the Tribeca section of Manhattan.  My photograph "Finding Refuge in a Van", was recognized for inclusion by the juror, Aline Smithson.  The Photograph was chosen from over 2000 images and 219 photographers.

The event was overwhelming with an estimated 200-300 hundred people attending the opening last Thursday evening July 6th.

I would like to extend a special thank you to Gary and Alice for allowing me to photograph them and share their story.

 

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[email protected] (Charles Hahn) soho photo gallery https://hahnphoto.net/blog/2017/7/the-2017-national-photography-competition-and-exhibition-at-the-soho-photo-gallery Sat, 08 Jul 2017 21:46:54 GMT
2017 SoHo Photo Gallery National Competition and Exhibition https://hahnphoto.net/blog/2017/5/2017-soho-photo-gallery-national-competition-and-exhibition

My Photograph "Finding Refuge in a Van" will be hanging in the 2017 SoHo Photo Gallery National Competition and Exhibition in the TriBeCa district of Manhattan, NYC.  It will run from July 5th through July 22nd 2017.  The opening will be Thursday July 6th.

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[email protected] (Charles Hahn) soho photo gallery https://hahnphoto.net/blog/2017/5/2017-soho-photo-gallery-national-competition-and-exhibition Thu, 25 May 2017 22:42:30 GMT
Chippewa Street, 1975 A Photographic Essay https://hahnphoto.net/blog/2016/2/chippewa-street-1975-a-photographic-essay Chippewa Street 1975 A Photographic Essay
 


 

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As Chippewa continues to reinvent itself, it’s important to remember its history, the good, the bad and ugly. That’s what one photographer has done by compiling a slide show of images on Youtube that date back from 1975. It’s hard to believe that this is the same district that we have today, but if you look past the signs, awnings, etc. you can identify a number of buildings that remain. Despite the seedy nature of the street (back then), the photos show a ton of character (and characters) from that era. The House of Quinn is featured, as is Fisherman’s Wharf, along with a slew of businesses that I never even knew existed, and a few legendary haunts. Check out the details of the images here. From the photographer Charles Hahn:

“My first photographic essay came in 1975 for a high school project. I photographed a visual representation of the Chippewa Street area in Buffalo, NY. This seedy part of the city was an area of undesirables, homeless, and street people. The school, due to the overall nature of the area, and the fact that I was only eighteen years old, first turned down my project proposal. But with some coaxing they finally approved. At the end of the presentation two photos are not of Chippewa Street but, of downtown Main Street viewed from the Marine Midland Building in 1974 and, a view of the Statler from the top of City Hall. The final two photographs were taken by my friend Alex Enos. Hope you enjoy. You can also view this essay at www.cwhahn.com.”
 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GLv4cUAIck
 


 

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[email protected] (Charles Hahn) (1975 (buffalo (chippewa a essay) ny.) photographic street) https://hahnphoto.net/blog/2016/2/chippewa-street-1975-a-photographic-essay Sun, 28 Feb 2016 00:14:58 GMT