Part 1 – Inspiration This picture seems to merit two weeks’ worth of my time. So today, for part one, I will focus on location and light--the sources of my inspiration. The first thing that strikes me about this picture is a small anecdote from a shoot that took place long ago at an estate on Long Island.  I asked the owner of the house if it would be possible to shoot the interior of the house as well as the exterior gardens. She reacted by saying, “Oh, you want to be able to come inside if it’s raining?”  My response, however, was, “No, I’d like to come inside in case it’s sunny.” This explains a lot about how I work. I have chosen over the years to never shoot in studios.  They feel sterile and artificial, and I became a photographer to find a way to be a part of the world.  I have no interest in turning my back on it, isolating myself in an artificial environment, and seeking total control.  I’m already isolated enough. Light—with all its glorious variation from day to day, city to city, latitude to latitude—is my source of inspiration. In biblical times, knowledge, truth and insight were exposed by how they were illuminated.  Without light there was only darkness.  Revelations came through light. Likewise, with me, natural light is what best exposes and illuminates beauty. As a result, for the majority of my 40 years in photography, I have worked with available light. And this location is an example of how natural light is able to illuminate beauty. America, which is a modern country, has for the past 75 years done its best to abandon that which is most sacred—light.  Most modern commercial construction is created with tinted or closed off windows, so that temperature and climate are easily controlled.  They are mimicking what photographers do in studios. They are turning their backs, closing their eyes to the outside. This is one of the few locations I’ve ever found in New York that has all the things I love.  It has age, character, and large southerly windows that open. It allows me to feel I am in some glorious space, as many must have felt as they first walked into Chartres Cathedral centuries ago.

Is it really The End? Is it the end of an era or something else? Should I heed the words on this spread: wade not into unknown waters? In the small remote corner of the planet I grew up in—a refined and course place where there were moments where men were gentle and at times even noble—I often felt estranged and separate from the general world.  I was drawn to the ideal, but mostly surrounded by the mundane. That is why I took pictures.  I was looking to unite the two.  I was trying to pull the ordinary me into the extraordinary, to get closer to the wonder of people and places.  I was searching for a way in as I was practicing a way out.  No wonder I was so confused and anxious as a young man. Just as I had finally found comfort with myself and my surroundings, the culture does its thing.  It evolves and changes into a place where I am again not comfortable.  Where I seek beauty, it finds contentment with an ugliness that is celebrated as an important vernacular.  Where I seek symmetry, the rhythm of life is discordant.  When I finally almost found my buoyancy, the world switches and everything is out of balance. The question is, as I walk into the unknown future, how do I find the way to me all over again? You can find the way to me this next week at PDN's Photo Plus Expo at the Javits Center in New York City. I"ll be lecturing on October 23rd from 1:15 to 3:15.  Come by. Look at the book.  Talk. I'll also be at the Kodak booth a majority of the day on October 22nd. Come and buy a book.

For many years I had tried, to no avail, to get an assignment where I’m allowed to use heavy-set men as the subjects. I have always thought that heavy-set men with a certain amount of style carry themselves in a way that lends itself to really wonderful photographs. However, in today’s culture, there is a formula that men and women must fit into: only certain types of bodies are beautiful and therefore only certain things are construed as handsome or beautiful, elegant or not, appropriate or inappropriate. But I disagree.  Take, for example, the great Italian designer Gianfranco Ferré, who had this incredible air of quality about him.  There was something attractive about this person, much more attractive than some skinny 20-year-old male model who looks vacuous and empty. Finally, the New York Times Magazine assigned me to do a photograph on exercise.  I immediately thought of this person, Marshal Efron, who is a great character actor. On one hand, the photograph is playing with the idea of this very heavy-set man exercising.  While that is somewhat funny, and it may be one reason why this photograph works, it is not the part of the picture that I like the most. Marshal Efron is someone I find very interesting.  He is not only strong of character and strong of will, but he is strong of personality as well.  I have found that people who generally don’t look the part—who don’t have the proper decorum, who aren’t traditionally handsome or beautiful, who are slightly outside the vernacular in one way or another, be it physically, mentally or emotionally—are generally the most attractive to me. Today I’ll leave you with a few pictures from my book launch party last week.  Thanks to all who attended.  We will have a book signing in December at Sotheby’s in New York City.  Hope you all can make it to this one as well.