New York City (1967-1969)
I was born, grew up, and lived in New York City until I was fourteen years old. The city offered a plethora of cultural and visual opportunities, and we were always visiting museums and galleries, seeing classic films down the block at the New Yorker movie theater, and looking at all types of different photos in magazines, newspapers and books. I especially responded to the black and white street photography of Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Frank, and Danny Lyons.
My first 35mm camera was an Asahi-Flex which was given to me by my father. It had a waist level and direct optical viewfinder for eye-level use. I also had a very small Minox B spy camera that my Grandpa Manny gave to me, which I thought was really cool. It produced tiny negatives from a small drop-in film cartridge, and it could fit in my pocket.
When I was fourteen I traded in the Asahi-Flex for a Nikkormat camera with a 50mm lens, which I carried around the city, photographing strangers, street scenes, peace marches, rock and roll shows and anything else that caught my eye. After shooting a roll, we dropped the film off at our local camera store on Broadway and I was always so excited to open those packets of developed 3” x”5” prints to see what kind of magic I had captured. For a little while we set up a small darkroom in the back bathroom of our apartment and I learned how to develop and print my own black and white photographs.
During my sophomore year of high school, my mother, brother, stepfamily and I moved to Great Neck, Long Island. I hated leaving the city for the suburbs, so every weekend, despite my mom's pleading to make a life in our new hometown, I would take the train into the city to meet my friends, wander the streets, listen to music, and to photograph.
My life on Long Island lasted a mere year and a half, and then my stepfather's job moved us to Los Angeles, California. Once out west, and no longer having New York as subject matter, I stopped taking photographs. It wasn't until my third year of college that I once again returned to photography.
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