PHOTOGRAPHY

PHOTOGRAPHY

My fascination with cameras began at about age 5, and by age 12 I had my own darkroom. At age 18 I became an assistant to the famous photographer Richard Avedon, and later his studio manager. Then, in 1965 a friend and I opened our own commercial studio in New York City, which thrived for the next 15 years. Although I am now a writer and book editor, I still take plenty of pictures for those books and for this blog. And also because I enjoy it so much.

CLICK ON the links below for the full story. 

STARTING OUT IN PHOTOGRAPHY...An early start leads to a big break. Long before I ever though of travel or publishing, I developed an interest in photography, which led to becoming an assistant to one of the world's greatest photographers. So, to start at the beginning:

THE AVEDON YEARS, PART I: Becoming a Professional Photographer. How a 17-year-old high school senior in Allentown, PA contacted the great master, asked for a job — and got it.

THE AVEDON YEARS, PART II: My First Career Begins. Freshly graduated and just turned 18, it's off to New York City and a new life.

THE AVEDON YEARS, PART III: First Months On The Job. It wasn't all fun, but some of it was. And that's what I remember.

THE AVEDON YEARS, PART IV: Assisting Richard Avedon. More little adventures, from California to Jamaica.

THE AVEDON YEARS, PART V: How Those Great B&W Prints Were Made. The inside story about now-obsolete darkroom techniques.

THE AVEDON YEARS, PART VI: A Milestone is Reached — California 1955. The greatest adventure of my life up until then.

THE AVEDON YEARS, PART VII: Assisting Richard Avedon — 1959-1962. Back from my army service, I move up the ladder at the Avedon studio.

THE AVEDON YEARS, PART VIII: The First Time I Saw Paris. Now promoted to studio manager, I get the big annual assignment to work in Europe.

THE AVEDON YEARS, PART IX: Changes Come To The Avedon Studio. New technologies are adopted for greater efficiency. Alas, they are now completely obsolete.

THE AVEDON YEARS, PART X: The Famous Photographers School. A mostly-forgotten part of Avedon's career is remembered.

THE AVEDON YEARS, PART XI: Nothing Personal. Adventures in producing a most unusual book of photographs by the great master.

THE AVEDON YEARS, PART XII: Photographing The Beatles. We're off to London in January 1965 to photograph Fab Four, as astronauts no less.

THE AVEDON YEARS, PART XIII: A Hanging at the Smithsonian. We hang an exhibition of Avedon's photographs in the Smithsonian Institution in 1962.

THE AVEDON YEARS, PART XIV: Covering the Paris Collections. It's off to Paris for the Fall Couture Collections.

THE AVEDON YEARS, PART XV: My First Experience at Writing for Pay. My position with Avedon opens new opportunities.

THE AVEDON YEARS, PART XVI: Defiling a castle in Spain. We do forbidden photos at the Alhambra, then flee the country.

THE AVEDON YEARS, PART XVII: About Cameras. What cameras did Avedon use? Find out here.

THE AVEDON YEARS, PART XVIII: The Kennedys. Avedon takes pre-inaugural portraits of the First Family.

THE AVEDON YEARS, PART XX: Lighting Techniques. How Avedon lit his pictures in the earlier years.

THE AVEDON YEARS, PART XXI: Avedon's Studios. This thread begins with a description and floor plan of his studio in the early 1950s.

THE AVEDON YEARS, PART XXII: Avedon's Other Side. How advertising photography financed his creative side.

THE AVEDON YEARS, PART XXIII: Photographing Hair in the Sun. A series of fun-filled location trips for Clairol hair products.

THE AVEDON YEARS, PART XXIV: Avedon's Real Talent. A look into just what made him so great — it wasn't cameras or photographic skills.

THE AVEDON YEARS, PART XXV: Avedon's Studios, Part 2. The studio moved to East 49th Street in 1954.

THE AVEDON YEARS, PART XXVII: Assisting Avedon. About the people who worked for and with him in the 1950s and '60s.

THE AVEDON YEARS, PART XXVI: An Invitation to Participate. An appeal for more information about his life.

THE AVEDON YEARS, PART XXVIII: Leaving Avedon. I finally got up the nerve to head out on my own.

THE AVEDON YEARS, PART XXIX: Visiting the Avedon Foundation. I am invited to an interview and video session in New York. 

OUR PHOTO STUDIO, PART I: How, with little money and few contacts, Jim and I took the plunge and went out on our own.

OUR PHOTO STUDIO, PART II: Business Begins. Those first clients and how they got us off the ground.

OUR PHOTO STUDIO, PART III: We move to Fifth Avenue. Now profitable, Steinbicker/Houghton Inc. moves to new quarters on New York's Fifth Avenue.

OUR PHOTO STUDIO, PART IV: On assignment for Time-Life Books, we travel to Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Washington D.C. to photograph all sorts of people, including some in the Capitol and the White House.

OUR PHOTO STUDIO, PART VI: Working on the railroad. We do assignments for Amtrak and I get to ride up front with the engineer.

OUR PHOTO STUDIO, PART VII: Shooting fashions in Jamaica. We spend a week with a famous designer away from the tourist haunts.

OUR STUDIO, PART VIII: What's a Go-See? How both photographers and their models develop skills and build portfolios.

OUR STUDIO, PART X: Rockin' in the Bahamas. We travel to Nassau to do an album cover for prog rockers Emerson. Lake & Palmer.

OUR STUDIO, PART XI: To Specialize or not to Specialize — That is the Question.

OUR STUDIO, PART XII: Highway to Hell — we do the cover for AC/DC's first really big rock album.

OUR STUDIO, PART XIII: Hard times in the Photo Business — an attempt to unionize New York's commercial photography fails.

OUR STUDIO, PART XIV: Working on a Movie Set for TWA — we do advertising photos inside a plane mockup in Los Angeles.

OUR STUDIO, PART XV: Why we HAD to be in New York, why no place else would do.

OUR STUDIO, PART XVI: Our first photo assignment in Europe. We capture the visual essence of three operas.

OUR STUDIO, PART XVII: The Cameras We Used.

OUR STUDIO, PART XVIII: Location Vans.

OUR STUDIO, PART XIX: Photographing Chicago (The Band, not the City).

ADVENTURES IN SUPER 8: I try making movies.

CONVERTING COLOR PHOTOS TO B&W: How a once difficult procedure was made easy.

PHOTOGRAPHER'S ASSISTANTS: An article I wrote in a trade journal back in 1965 about the hiring of assist photographers and what to look for in them.