CONSTRUCTING A NEW CITY AFTER 9/11

Richard Meier’s team

I remember running around the Getty Museum with Richard Meier. I remember watching Frank Gehry place his head into a mini replica of Disney Hall. What I remember over my 40 years as a photographer is astonishing, because I remember.

Moments of time in my life are events of a lifetime. I have merely wanted to be present in the realization of living.

For the 80’s and part of the 90’s I captured the lives of artists and significant cultural participants. From the mid 90’s Architecture and the art of Design have ruled my visual sensibilities. I have never been able to escape the detailed beauty of design.

September 11th 2001 awakened a visual monster in me. The privileged years that followed enabled me to see hands and computer designs that have shaped the way we live and breathe. But it took a catastrophe to totally immerse  me into a culture of people who have shaped the way we see the world’s design today.

I had met  Herbert Muschamp, the New York Times Architecture through Philip Johnson in 1998.  Following 9/11 Herbert and Richard Meier and others decided that the best way to crawl out of the rubble of destruction was to create a rebirth downtown.

Herbert and Richard invited me to record the gathering of famed architects. The voices of Rem Koolhaas, Zaha Hadid, Peter Eisenman, Arata Isozaki, Raphael Vinoly, Bernard Tschumi, Elizabeth Diller, Ricardo Scofidio, Steven Holl and dozens more were called upon to contribute. I was merely a guy with a camera.

The first session led by Herbert Muschamp

Moments have mattered to me more than any other part of my photography career. Living in the moment while factors are being decided for our lives has always been a goal. After a few days of indecisions, a decision was made to have a competition. I could not have asked for a better position to be in. A Planet of Architects and for a single sterling moment my camera was at the center of the universe.

For weeks I ran to Norman Foster’s team meeting. Then to Vinoly and Fred Schwartz’s team. Eventually saw Libeskind’s team and then Greg Lynn’s team and so much more. I was privy to the inner sanctum. I didn’t know there was an even darker deeper inner sanctum?

I landed at the Meier team. At one point I realized that I had to capture the emotional strains. Weeks of trying to be a fly on the wall was hellish. The rewards were innumerable. To be able to watch the architect’s creative process was part of my dream. I was living my dream. Charles Gwathmey kept me afloat as politics raged through all of the teams. Chess was played like a “Game of Thrones” instead of the “Art of War”. Winning was the goal. All weapons were utilized. And my camera snapped.

Richard Meier, Charles Gwathmey, Steven Holl and Peter Eisenman and team

I have made hundreds of portraits of Architects. I have photographed thousands of buildings. The presence of my camera during those dozens of architectural gatherings was possibly seminal to my next steps forward as an architectural photographer.

9-11: Reflections on the Future

September 9th 2001 was an amazing day. Four of us stepped across the Williamsburg Bridge as if we were the “Sharks” and “Jets” from West Side Story. The illusory view from the bridge reminded me of the “Wizard of Oz’s” Emerald City.

I had to be dreaming. The Hamburgers from Peter Luger’s were weighing us down like Sea Lions sunning their satiated blubber. The burger and happiness slowed my mind. I scanned lower Manhattan. The World Trade Center stole my eyes for just that single moment from the bridge. My camera had danced with the “Towers” for more than 30 years. I made some more pics. Maybe New York was the Emerald City. Memory is a fragile beast.

We exited the bridge like children. We spoke about the privileged moment. We agreed that sometimes New York is like enjoying lollipops during Christmas.

We were home.

Everyone imagines the sound of the end. Sometimes it is simply as Ingmar Bergman’s “Seventh Seal” illustrated, a quiet chess match. Sometimes the sound is silent. Quiet is the most frightening sound.

On September 11th our morning routine was interrupted. TV’s silent broadcast, the telephone’s muted rings. It was sometime after 9:00 am when my wife called her office. The receptionist was hysterical. She was screaming that the World Trade Center had been hit by a plane. I grabbed my camera and rode the elevator to my building’s balcony on the 30th floor. I stood from 22nd street shooting film as if a nightmare needed to be recorded. It did! 

The nature of life as I knew it vanished. I needed to get closer. I walked a few blocks south  of Washington Square Park from Madison Square Park. I felt the day hammering my head. The foreign debris I was inhaling stopped me in my tracks. I turned back. I arrived back at home. I became acutely aware of death in an unprecedented way. Maybe The Rapture creeped into my mind.

Millions of people were suffering across the globe. I stared at the television. I wanted to make more photographs. I was motionless. My mind and eyes could not escape tragedy. My brain had been forever branded with “never forget”.

FRAGILITY of LIFE:

For days I stared north into New York City. The view south was bedridden with a never ending haze. Soldiers stood ready around Madison Square Park. Soldiers and “First Responders” grappled with a city that was descending into hell. I sat at my window as sounds of sirens whirred throughout the city.

Twenty-Third Street was the thruway to the Twenty-Sixth Street Armory where I was told the triage took place. Every available vehicle seemed to carry parts of life and death to the Armory. We were dispirited at best. What would it take to live with a semblance of peace of mind.

Days passed. Then one dark afternoon, a yellow school bus with black drawn curtains drove by my hellacious window. The curtains prevented my eyes from actually seeing what I perhaps had imagined. I had imagined death sitting in each window seat. It was a window into what might have been the darkest moment in my life. The breadth of that tormentingly tattered vision is forever sealed  somewhere in my dark side.

A few days later, when the “no fly” restrictions were lifted, we flew to Chicago. We had originally planned the trip weeks before the attack. When we arrived, O’Hare airport was nearly empty. Whatever eerie might mean to some, to us it was like stepping on ghosts. Maybe ten people wandered the corridors. We sensed as we walked towards the outside a cool air. It wasn’t just around us. It was inside the air we haltingly breathed.

For a few days it seemed we had encountered a parallax view. Oddly every Chicagoan  knew we were from New York. People from every corner of the city  overwhelmingly embraced our concerns. We swept through Wrigley Field, the Architectural Boat Tour and so much more.

We could breathe. We were free.

The next day we heard that there was a bomb threat at the Sears Tower. It was a false alarm. 

I Take What the Eyes Give Me

Portrait of Artist David Hare 1985

There is a particular patina that speaks to a well worn life. There is a stately rigor that the New York City Fifth Ave. Vanderbilt and Frick mansions strut. Then there are the threadbare remains of a life lived at East Hampton’s Grey Gardens. 

Youth has a way of blinding our paths forward. We are the most indispensable people on the planet, until we are not. Surfing the crest of a wave or motorcycling top speeds atop rain soaked highways come to mind when thinking about youth racing for life’s most exhilarating experiences. It is not reckless abandonment as some may think. It is freedoms’ call for the most we can savor before there is nothing left. None of the above means anything until the self-examination in the mirror recognizes the saddest or the most rewarding self. The life lived matters most.

From the early fall of 1982 to the early spring of 1985 I made nearly a 1000 portraits of artists (Dekooning, Jasper Johns, Miro, Moore, Warhol, Lichtenstein, Rauschenberg, Haring, Basquiat) and more. Shoot, shoot, shoot,I was having a ton of fun. If I was introduced to someone, it was, “Richard makes portraits of artists”. I felt I was a photographer. But I wasn’t. I was merely taking pictures. I was just this portrait guy. I never had much of a plan. Russia had not happened yet. London, Paris and Los Angeles were...

I started to realize that I had never made a photograph that I liked. Years of travel and personalities suddenly seemed threadbare. I was seeing with blind faith.

So one day, I placed my camera in my drawer. I needed to see a bit differently. I merely thought that I could clear my head. It was among the best and worst decisions I have ever made.

I have learned that photography is not something you can pick up whenever you want. It is tightly akin to sports. There is a rhythm that one needs to be in tune with. The way we see, they way we recognize life’s twitches are not happenstance. They are sensor recognitions. The mind’s eye recognizes a pattern that is no different than tennis, baseball, golf and dozens of other sports that rely so heavily on rhythms.

I first recognized the rhythm factor in the summer of 1985. I received a call to shoot a portrait of the sculptor David Hare. He was an Abstract Expressionist. His dealer needed something asap. It was nearly 3 months since I had even held a camera.

I raced to Hare’s studio. Arriving, I realized that I couldn’t quite remember how to make a portrait. I felt clueless. It was especially strange for me to try and fumble with my camera, and at the same time, prepare him for the moment. Hare was a bit difficult to handle. Feisty comes to mind.

After about 30 minutes of dancing empty handed. I saw what seemed to be an apparition. There was this light that I had not recognized before. I quickly snapped.

I looked at David Hare and said, “I am done!”. Only a few times in my life have I recognized the “shot” in one frame. 

Most photographers shoot anywhere between maybe 50 and 1000 images on any assignment. But I couldn’t for the life of me think what else I might want to do.

I grandly shook his hand. I packed my equipment and strolled to my lab to see what needed to be seen.

From that day forward, I embraced photography’s spirit. I reclaimed the rhythm.

I started to be a photographer.

I Dreamed a Dream From the Eyes of Others

I have always believed that the lens from which we see our world is continually filtering ideas from life’s history and experiences. Maybe the matrix photography’s science, math and technology lie in, is a Petri dish for growing our ideas?

So many visual influencers try to explain how we should see and how we need to see. Fortunately there is no code, no formula, no rules. There is a gasp. The heart seizes a moment and the natural instinct sounds like snippety snap snap snap! The picture is done. The truths that are in our dreams quickly reveal our great  powers of perception, and clarity.

I have been a photographer for 2/3rds of my life. Thousands of portraits, many thousands of snaps and unknown thousands of architecture images, have taught me that I have been living in a dream. I dream everyday of the photograph that I might discover. When I dream I borrow the dreams from the lives of others. I merge them into my own.

 I remember reading about a jazz musician listening to the ocean waves as light poured into his rehab room. Locked on heroin, he allowed his mind to paint the walls with a dream. He lay on the beach next to a bikini clad woman. The  sun-drenched day warmed his hallucinations. He passed his hands over her body caressing his mind thru the afternoon.

I remember a story about a 1950’s photo-shoot on a Southern California beach. A tall  black musician strutted from the ocean to the sands draped with two white women on either arm. His golden saxophone slung over his neck catching the sunlight. The summer heat seemingly bends over the surface.

I remember the story of a budding Japanese photographer. He was commissioned to photograph the most famous man in Japan. The icon asked the young man what photograph would he like to make. The young photographer suggested that the icon take off all of his clothes and he would  wrap a sailor’s rope over the entirety of his body.

These collective images are dreams  that others have shared. They are  among many dreams that have empowered me. My heart wants to to believe in something more. If there is no more, then there is not a photograph to be made.

Sharing Japan with architect Kengo Kuma

Traveling to Japan always makes me feel like I am living in the past-present-future tenses collectively. I corral my thoughts as if I am assembling all of  life’s facts with fairy tales that spirit me away to a galaxy of alternative universes. What is life for if not the better dream. That is how I enter Japan.

I have  in the past lived vicariously through the lives of Japanese giants: The famed writer Yukio Mishima, film director Akira Kurosawa and Godzilla early on lanced my emotional heart. They helped me dream words in my reality. Mishima’s Hari Kari, Kurosawa’s revenge and Godzilla’s nuclear reactions are  lives past-present-future I learned from. Their lives apprised me of the  fights to be had: self, family and nation.

But sometimes the smallest of stories races through you and inspires a small flame of ideas to rage grander in your mind. A commission early in the career of the Japanese photographer Eikoh Hosoe  to photograph Yukio Mishima slammed me emotionally. It is a fabulous coming of age story. A budding photographer reaching greater heights in the moment of a shutter-speed. It is a great story that has fed my passion in photography for decades. The story is for another blog.

I met Kengo Kuma for the first time in my New York studio. I photographed him for my book Portraits of the New Architecture 2. We clearly didn’t know each other...but like so many architects who have sat for my camera, I got to listen, and talk a bit. As Kuma sat on my pink Florence Knoll bench with my cat MAX, I watched him unfold into our conversation. We addressed his work. Nothing is better for a photographer than hearing what might be an architect’s vision, before you set out to shoot. When I saw his building in Aix-en-Provence for my book, it was  riveting to hear his voice in my ear. To hear what needs to be heard from the architect? Photography becomes an assemblage of thoughts that levitates your visual game. There is an elixir that mixes an understanding of what might be, and what will be.

Aix-en-Provence

A year later we spoke about how we might work together. His Olympic stadium for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics  became a focus of our conversation. Many months later, I received the invite: “Shall we begin?”.

You travel around the world for a thousand reasons but what is paramount, is that it is not a rudderless journey. Nothing should impede your desires. You are driven by desire but accomplishment reigns.

My assignment with Kengo Kuma began in Tokyo. It is such a thrilling city to shoot in. I wanted my camera to devour the Japanese urban life. You espy a color a light at every corner. It is a perfect mixture of Tokyo’s culture breathing life forces into my eyes. It is exactly what photography should be. The days afloat on the streets become a magnet for discovery.

After a few days of architecture hunting angles for Kuma’s architecture, and thrilling street shooting, Kengo Kuma called me to possibly add to the commission. He had designed a series of buildings in southern Japan, Yusuhara. He wanted me to photograph them not as his designs but as I saw them.

It turned out to be a journey I dreamed about as a kid: to enter a land of uncertainty. What a sensorial gift it turned out to be. To cool my jets and for a few days to see what nature allowed me to see. Anomalies rained on my known perspectives like a firefly flight. I was not yet prepared to enjoin urban and rural identities. But I did.

Familiarity raced away into the distance. I was in heaven. It became an amazing opportunity for my imagination to work in overtime. I realized I could explore boundaries beyond my photography’s known universe. Photography is at its best when you have to learn to speak a new language because your environment dictates so. Kuma’s assignments dared me to see beyond the Sagittarius A*. 

Yusuhara is one of those charming cities that time has forgotten. The encroaching natural surroundings are like an orchestral performance by the flora and fauna. There was a song with every vista.

Kuma’s works invite secret rites of passages. They are more like guidance systems. A photographer just needs to see the right sequence, as designed by the architect.

So with the accompaniment of a full orchestra of music, I began to choreograph the journey through this magnificent lost world. I was free to feel nature’s influence on my shooting decisions.

Five or six designs Kengo Kuma designed. Each one had a footprint that linked my eyes to the landscape. I felt a bit like a Tolkien creature rummaging through nature. The designs were treasures. I merely needed a way to make the material stand on its own and yet belong to Yusuhara.

I tried to think what Kuma would want. But I also tried to call on one of his heroes, Kenzo Tange. I tried to meld  their ideas utilizing my Rubik mentality. My goal was to capture  their visual dynamics. I tried to tether their works into a single thought. I found some hidden treasures. 

Photographing Tokyo and Yusuhara became some sort of my manic truth. When I arrived back in Tokyo via the “Bullet Train”, my eyes were softer and more alert. I was ready for more Kuma.

The Nature of Architecture’s Photography

Standing alone atop the Sonoran desert hills, we watch the efficiency of the Gila woodpeckers piercing  cacti. We begin to hear thousands of pierced giant Saguaro cacti hissing in the wind. It becomes a passionate symphony. The whole of the desert wails in sympathy. We become witnesses to nature’s primordial call. The cacti’s skin begins to heal their wounds. They entrap their air and entrap their water. My heart is entrapped.

Suddenly it stops. Your ears pop as you have been sucked into a vortex of space with such force, that all of nature’s discordances vanish. Your passion has been elevated and enslaved by the quietude. You recognize the intimacy of the moment. You have fallen in love with that intimacy. 

The history of photography has always fed my passions. From the 1840’s until early 1900’s thousands of photographers embarked on  journeys to “Lost Horizons”. They traveled alone and with caravans. The brought chemicals and large cameras over oceans, deserts, mountains and across continents. The photographers wanted to return to their native lands with pictures and stories of the world’s history. Everywhere they went their eyes saw life in a fresh light. 

Everyday my mind and camera tries to  mirror those first photographers. The moment of discovery to this day spirits me away to our past in my present. I have become a constant Lewis Carroll climbing through the mirror to discover what is beyond. 

The above is how I feel one can come face to face with architecture. Architecture can reveal itself as a living force of nature. One just needs to listen.

When I photograph architecture I most often find that I have been drawn into a spatial vector in warp drive. Nothing can compete with a passion that elevates your desire to be at once, living mindfully inside and outside of an intended footprint.

 It might be photographed as an object of a documentary or a practical piece of commerce. But it is meant to  be seen from an angle of a wide repose. It is meant to be seen with a telephoto presence.

Yes of course the above may sound a wee bit sacrosanct. But with millions of cameras roaming the earth how else might someone differentiate a passing snap (as some are too willing to do) from a purposeful engagement.

The most important architectural voices working today have spent years intending to make a house on a lake, a skyscraper through the atmosphere or a community clutch of homes live with us for 100 years. When I hear about some photographers shooting snippety snap snap snap, I am always surprised. It seems a few hours, a few days is not much to ask a photographer to see what is needed to see.

My life as a photographer of architecture is essentially a compilation of a thousand architectural voices. For years Architects have shared their views on architecture and architects. Stories abound: Zaha whispering in my ear how 20 samurai might lop of the heads of six famous architects. Bernard Tschumi directing me by phone what I might see of one of his buildings. Kengo Kuma sharing some ideas of what to look for in his new projects. Oscar Niemeyer said this, Thom Mayne said that...It has truly been a rewarding experience.

Zaha Hadid Serpintine

Oscar Niemeyer Museum Rio: Niteroi

Thom Mayne: Diamond Ranch High School

I have become an advocate of how one needs to consider the principles of rubik’s  cube to adequately make the most of understanding how to shoot a buildings’ design. 

Your camera needs to consider every shape, every shard of light every perspective. When an architect sees that I have discovered a successful perspective, I feel I have put in my due diligence.

One day I was on a train from Yale University to New York. I was sitting with Frank Gehry. Two and a half hours with Frank one on one can be quite an experience.

The last 3 or 4 times we have met he has asked me what have I been up to. I try not to flood him with this and that. I did take this particular occasion to share a pic of one of his buildings. The moments of sharing can be like the card game of “War”. One card can give you a big take away...or possibly a big loss. Most moments when you share your work can be emotionally problematic. On this day while Amtrak rolled along, I was scrolling through various folders on my ipad. Frank stopped me and said, “wow, I haven’t seen one like this before. How did you do this?”. Yes of course I didn’t tell him how or when or why I made this image in this way. All I told him was I knew in the moment it was right. 

Those travelers from photography’s inception, are my mentors. 

Frank Gehry’s Disney Hall

A Measure of Success: My Day with Willem de Kooning

When the Dutch colonized parts of America in the 1600’s, they paved the way for centuries of Dutch influence. There have been many hashtags indicating what/when were America’s Dutch red letter dates. One needs not to travel beyond New York to realize their influences.

A simple “Grand Jete” from Rotterdam to New York in the late 1920’s stands today as a reminder of one particular great Dutch influence. de Kooning arrives.

Early in my photography career, an art dealer, Robert Elkon asked if I would  be interested in photographing Willem de Kooning. In 1982 I was very much interested in art. My career was flailing in many directions trying to define a career focus. I had made some portraits of artists and dozens of other people. I was a photographer for hire...if you paid, I shot. 

de Kooning  lived in “the Springs”. It is part of East Hampton. I had visited East Hampton by car before. I tried the Long Island Rail Road for a new experience.

I love riding trains. It allows for a circuitry of thoughts. Every imaginable dreamscape comes to mind. I hopped aboard and began my 2-3 hour journey. It was a bit like being in Woody Allen’s movie, “Love and Death”. You know, Woody’s character, Boris is in the glum rail car. The lights are flickering, windows are stained and the car is filled with sad faces. The worst imaginable thoughts come to mind. I wasn’t sure if this was to be an adventure or a nightmare. I could hardly make out the splendor of the Long Island countryside. I was clearly a prisoner in what I felt was a closet of squalor.

I was wondering about what the journey might mean to my career. I was dreaming about what I might produce. I imagined when I began my journey as a photographer that I would become one of those Dagueere generation of photographers who traveled the earth to return home with images of the exotic planet that was either flat or round but clearly new to our eyes.

The generation of artists that produced Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning’s art was not new to the canon of art history. Expressionism/Abstract Expressionism was a Kandinsky world and more. These two artists rode this wave of art into the second half of  the American century. Pollock and de Kooning had carved out an incredible legacy. I was the lucky one on my way to make a bit of history with one of those giants. Pollock was now dead and most people presumed de Kooning was dead. The pedestrian story was that he had Alzheimer’s. I could feel a short circuit in my brain. This day was either going to be a waste of time, or a memorable Richard Schulman red letter date.

The train arrived. After three hours of my mind feeling like Alice going down the rabbit hole, I stepped away from the train to make my way to meet one of America’s great painters.

I had not rented a car, and taxis in those days did not hang out midweek at the station.

I pretended I was 12 years old again, I did the only imaginable thing – I stuck out my thumb. I walked for maybe a mile before a jeep pulled up with two blond girls in the front. They asked where I was going. “I’m here to photograph the artist Willem de Kooning”. I gave them the address.

I hopped in. We sped along. The passenger turned around as we were driving along past East Hampton’s famous windmill and fabled homes to the area known as “The Springs.” She said, ”I think you have made a mistake. He will not pose for you”. I was clearly surprised. “Why are you so sure?”. “I’m Bill de Kooning’s daughter Lisa”, she said. Wow!! What are the odds? I told her the session was already arranged. She posed a proposition. She said that if her dad says ok, that she will personally drive me back to the train station afterwards. She smiles and  hands me a “smoke”. I take a “hit” or two. 

We arrive at the house. She jumps out of the car and runs to the house. “Dad” she screams. “Are you expecting a photographer?” He says, “Yes, Schulman”. Her face drops in surprise. She walks me in, and there I shake Willem de Kooning’s hand. He was dressed in a blue bathrobe and white pajamas.

In those days, I recorded my sessions on audio tape. I made very few. It got in the way of making photographs, but I’m grateful this tape still exists. We strolled around the living area and sipped coffee as he shared with me stories  about arriving in America in the 1920’s. He recalled the girls and drinking at the Cedar Bar in Greenwich Village. But maybe the best share was about the remarkable day when Jackson Pollack came racing to his house, raving about his new style of painting using a drip technique. The afternoon was filled with Bill’s lucid account of personal history, the art world and artist friends. The de Kooning moment was not merely a career moment, but a life experience.

I finished my day with a handshake. I turned off the recorder, packed my bags and turned to Bill to tell him how grateful I was for this time.

 I walked to the end of the property. I turned to see him standing in the doorway waving at me. My ride had disappeared. I headed down the road back to town.The fall leaves were raining from the sky like a million Monarch Butterflies flitting from the heavens. I declared out loud, “this! is it. I know what am going to do the rest of my life.” Maybe a hundred thousand photographs later, I realize how the de Kooning moment paved the way for a career taking pictures.

Willem de Kooning

Federico Fellini and Michelangelo Antonioni Breathed Fresh Ideas into My Day WithGae Aulenti and Ettore Sottsass

When I arrive in Italy I like to imagine Julius Caesar and the Roman Empire. So much power so much glory rushing across a continent like a tidal wave. The notion of world order suffused your brain waves. 

Italy like Europe and its’ ever evolving boundaries of nations as in most continents is like a philately collection changing hands over centuries. There is a greater significance to the provenance of one stamp one country over another as time pushes forward. 

Italy’s incredible cultural history teaches my camera to recognize layers of information in every moment. Photographs that exhibit even an iota of a narrative are in fact a novel unto themselves. The richness of stories told in an image communicate life forces that most people just don’t see...maybe like the experience of seeing a UFO for the first time...when it is true your whole mind lights up.

That is why when I travel through Italy sometimes I find my vision impeded. I am not entirely sure why. Maybe the history is so mind consuming that I am lost in a glorious haze. I am possibly under a spell. I think the fault possibly lies in Milan’s La Scala. The famed opera house sends me a euphonious dance of Mozart, Puccini, Verdi and the greatest tenors and sopranos that have ever arched their lips. I am overwhelmed by the greatness I will never know.

 There are tools to escape this halting reverence. I always need a visual rhythm to attach my eyes to. For me that has always been cinema.

My camera has been influenced by films years before my career began. Dozens of film makers and thousands of stills in film have shaped the way I breathe imagery through my mind and lens. I have always felt a special debt of gratitude to Fellini and Antonioni. They simultaneously lifted my eyes to beyond the limitations of a single frame. In particularly the films “The Nights of Cabiria” and “Red Desert”(“Red Desert” was Antonioni’s first film in color) defined for me what it means to have a photograph shaped by imagery, exaggeration, fragile emotions and the meaning of color. Their films provided a postwar (WW2) way to reveal an inner character and an urban landscape. Thousands of images have resonated with me: Fellini’s usage of a 1956 DeSoto Fireflite Convertible and Antonioni’s pale red industrial plants have become my cameras’ pillars of understanding visual identity.

Once you see these films, you can only become a photography addict. Their modernist views (Fellini and Antonioni) accompany me to my day as Il Flaneur of Milan. 

Utilizing  my commission to photograph the fabulous designers/architects Gae Aulenti and Ettore Sottsass, I embarked on a dark street, bright light chirascoura journey through the streets armed with Caesar, DaVinci, Mozart and dozens if not hundreds of camera considerations.

It is impossible to explain what it means to be alone amongst a million people, a thousand years of a city. It is truly unique to everyone’s reflective soul. You are simultaneously lonely and bubbling with verve. If you take the wrong path, one might commit suicide...if you take the right one, you dance the jig atop the Duomo.

An essay about Milan is not to be written now. The enjoyment of a cultural phenomenon that is alluringly rich at every corner is not to be written now either.

I fuse my moments together. My dinner at Boeucc, Bulgari Hotel and grabbing a prosciutto/cheese/macchiato moments and many more have taken me through the streets for days with my intended sessions becoming one of a thousand coming of age moments.

Arriving at Gae’s ( pronounced guy) studio/office, one is not flummoxed by the sparse space. Hopefully you are aware that her designs are clean and smart.

Designer/Architect Gae Aulenti

When I am led into her personal space she greets me at the door. I have photographed  thousands of people young and old. After awhile you begin to recognize life’s map in their eyes. Gae’s eye speak to all of the wars an architect endures. 

Her studio space is a place that I dreamed of having for a million years. Books, designs and a place to retreat to, all in a square of bliss.

So many subjects want to turn the attention on me. They defend their personal fortress like something out of the “Game of Thrones”. They will protect their privacy, their feelings at all cost. Eventually Gae opens up with a bit of prodding about her most famous assignments. She discusses the Musee d’Orsay, the lamps and tables we wish we could afford. She has come around. She is no longer protecting Gae. She reaches out and offers me a tea and something stronger. After a couple of hours of taking pictures, Gae asked me if I have gotten what I came for. I look around the space that I want to steal for my own. I recognize a light that I had not seen before. I suggested one more moment. I felt the success of my endeavor in a snap. It wasn’t the photograph, but the moment that I was living in history. I scanned the space one last time. Great designs, great space, great light and the ultimate share: a life. As I clicked the single frame, I realized I was done, spent. I always shake the hand of my subject thanking them for the time they gave me. This morning was a bit different. I took her hand and thanked her. Instead of getting up to escort me to the door. She said, “ if you do not mind I will sit here for awhile. As I looked back at Gae as I was leaving, she was in my light, the light I always dream about.

I stole some Milan moments in the afternoon to have  a bit of bread,cheese and prosciutto. I sipped a macchiato with something amber that was a bit stronger. 

I arrived at the home of Sottsass. I  wished that I was born in fifty other decades. I have always wanted to meet everyone who has made an impression on me. I am completely put at ease by Sottsass sparse living quarters. I realized in that moment his beautiful brightly colored designs have nothing to do with his domestic residence. I expected something futuristic. I imagined bright colors and cool white light pouring in. I imagined a 21st century space odyssey. Instead I was blown away by the shades pulled, amber lights and the aged lines of a man who seemingly disappeared from life. The life lived had vanished in his eyes. I have met young and old creators I have rarely met eyes that have said, “goodbye”. I was very happy to make this moment with my camera. 

Ettore Sottsass surprised be by sharing dozens of stories. For two hours I felt I was the luckiest photographer on the planet. This man who appeared to be near death, had a Disney affect on me. His eyes started to dance, his octaves were up and down. Methuselah came alive and gave the gift of Sottsass. When I shook his hand to let him know I had completed the shoot he floored me; “that’s it?”.

I entered the streets of Milan. Nearly 2500 years of history splayed before me. 

Fellini, Antonioni, Sottsass and Aulenti, carried me through the day.

Designer/Architect Ettore Sottsass

A Blind Man’s Love: Jean Hélion →

Imagine placing your coccyx keenly into the back of the fourth or fifth step of Paris’ Sacre-Coeur. Lean back and place your elbows back keenly three more steps… Stretch your legs, and take in one of the most glorious view of Paris.

In my mind I am in the center of the city. I am where I need to be. I am about to walk into my program for the day. But first I have to decide which stroke of energy will lead the way. I have dueling sounds running through my ears. On one side I have the possibility of engaging Vivaldi: Concerto for 4 Violins in B Minor. If I choose that as my companion. Then I must engage Proust’s “In Search of Lost Time”. This music and this collection will allow me to amble through the streets with a ton of considerations. Every sprig, shard of light, gathering of souls, footprints of buildings will amount to a story of Paris; past present and future.

In the other ear, I have George Harrison’s “Ski-ing” from the Wonderwall soundtrack. The barrage of disturbing guitar riffs, might give me the energy to tear through the streets with a raging madness. I would marry that music with Doris Lessing’s “A Briefing for a Descent into Hell”. That madness could electrify my creativity.

So I sit with this dilemma: amble my way… or pierce the heart of the city? It was like taking two separate yarns on a loom to weave the whole fabric of Paris with my camera. I am armed and ready with the visual language that might help me make sense of my upcoming portrait.

As I descended what I refer to as the Brassai steps from Montmartre down to the Luxembourg Gardens (a very long stroll) I more than at any time felt that I was a Tolstoy pawn as was his Prince Andrei in “War and Peace”.

As I danced down the Brassai steps I realized that I was like Andrei admiring the “lofty sky” with Napoleon in my sights. As a young man, Paris/Napoleon were bigger than the life known to me. I was in awe of what was and what was to be.

Paris has always been a visual palace that spoke to my heart. It is possible that I came of age as a photographer in this city. The dozens of trips that brought me here always spoke to a greater picture as a photographer. There was a bit of Proust in my camera, but thousands of books came to life when I looked to see what I might see.

i arrived habitually late for my session with one of the last of a generation of abstract/surrealist artists. Jean Hélion lived on Rue de Michelet near Luxembourg Gardens. The transition from Montmartre to the “…Gardens” is a bit like “War and Peace”. Both offer a historical chaos in Paris’ history.

Entering this world of artists was a goal for me. I wanted to photograph as many people that represented a style an idea a concept an agenda a game and an adventure to somewhere. I was after the living fathers of art history and everyone that followed them young and old.

Keith Haring was in his 20s, Basquiat was in his 20s and the world was talking about these prodigies. I was to photograph them as well. I realized that history was my light force. I wanted to capture the future past before it was someone else's recorded moment. I wanted this to be my legacy, capturing art history. The streets of Paris were not my obsession. Photographing the artists was my obsession: Cesar, Marcel Jean, Helion, Dubuffet, Matta, Andre Masson was my art history. I wanted the moment when I walked into the studios of not just artists but art. I wanted to see the canvas. I wanted the art in my camera...I wanted my story. 

Sometimes my story was what I expected... and then there were days where I saw the dekoonings or Miros and other maestros as if we were all the same age...wow what a shake up it was sometimes when my hero was 90 or 100. So you can imagine that I was totally flummoxed but in love when Helion's daughter still 20 years my senior said, “you know my father doesn't see but just a little. Let me walk you over to him.

There he was, his nose almost touching the canvas. A little man in a suit, tieless and a white shirt, nipping and tucking art. He was touching  the canvas with a bit of blue and glasses as thick as a doorknob. I was so much in love with the moment, I was unaware of my camera  weighing me down. I am still the kid with impressions that matter more than realities. My mind was clouded in dreams, because this is the dream I wanted to be real from the beginning. I wanted to stand one to to one with art history.

I am awash in colors. An artist’ life stood before me. A single shard of light, a cane and life's end posed before my camera. He took my hand after his daughter walked me up to him...and we strolled the studio through his memory. He was my eyes into his creations. I am reminded that I am a kid in my own eyes. I am wide eyed and just living a moment. Paris, Napoleon and more were just outside the walls of the studio.

I think I ended up photographing thousands of artists in my career. I witnessed what it was like to  stand in front of a blank canvas and decide what is the first moment, what is it I wanted to say. This is what the earliest cave drawings might have been about. Herbert Bayer once told me something like that...and I just loved the concept.

Jean Hélion and I had a coffee and a chat. I awake from my dream. “Shall we make your photograph Mr Schulman? For me the conversation was as important as the image. They are so intricately intwined.

I snapped an image and another. I was thinking about the light sparring with his glasses. I was a mere 6-10 frames From completing one of the saddest 125th of a seconds in my career. I looked at a life disappearing before my eyes in the guise of this fantastic little man whose 80 some odd years I cherished and adored. Hélion made me realize why I was in this moment. I took him by his hand and walked him to the side of the bed facing the window with his cane by his side.

My camera delivered the moment, death. My camera saw Jean Hélion disappearing into the light and beyond. There was a spell that enveloped the room. It was a moment that mattered. Life was over for him and that had to be my image.

My camera experienced death, the end of a life. He was being transported into the light and disappearing for good, an artists’ life at the end. I went up to him and stroked his shoulders and told him I was done. He whisked a tear from his eyes maybe guessing what I was thinking. He whispered, “but that was so fast, I hope you got what you wanted”.

I left his studio enraptured by my afternoon. I strolled through the “Luxembourg Gardens without noticing a single sound. Thirty-Five years later the shot was the experience I discovered that day. I will never forget photographing death.

Peter Zumthor is No Longer A Ghost

Peter Zumthor

Traveling from Vienna to Zurich was one of many photographic journeys that felt like an immersive journey into a world of architecture. The slow pastoral excursion through varied landscapes: hillsides and mountainous ascents and descents was exhilarating. With options of “Planes,Trains and Automobiles” at my disposal, the pacing I experienced on a train seemingly slowed the the earth’s rotation. My mind felt like the god Mercury racing up the sheer north face of the Eiger. Every image, every thought came hurtling through my brain like asteroids on steroids. Faster, faster and faster the world blurred before my eyes. But I was able to grab hold of the slowed earth rotation and relished my recent days making portraits with the famed architects Wolf Prix on one day and Hans Hollein on another. The generous time they shared with me enabled me to bring a fresh perspective on their architecture and architecture in general. I was given a green light to interpret as I saw fit.

Initially I had entered Vienna with Graham Greene’s “The Third Man” and Harry Lime as my visual template. When I travel I always use a photography navigational system to guide me through the streets and vistas. It allows me to view through a separate lens until I discover my own. Using Graham Greene to help me see Vienna was amazing. I followed the dark streets and shadows softened by fog. I saw “The Third Man” everywhere. My experience with the two fab architects enabled me to come alive. I was able to see what they felt. Graham Greene, Wolf Prix, Hans Hollein at once was plenty of ammunition to awaken me to what Vienna offers. Eventually I made my own Vienna. Looking back, I love what I was able to conjure with my camera.

Peter Zumthor

Swiftly the Viennese immersion compelled me to realize that one experience does not make a life. It only sharpens your insights and prepares you for tomorrow.

The train was careening past Innsbruck and more Austrian charm. I was under a spell.

With all the bucolic wonderland before me, I was struggling with the vile creature in my intestines I met in the American Bar in Vienna. Bent over like “The” Hunchback... I arrived in Zurich.

I had many difficult moments to find the strength to move forward. Initially my mind was lost in another type of search. Tom Stoppard had me guessing that “Travesties” was everywhere. As in my Viennese apparitions, I was hoping for Lenin and Joyce at every turn, but I was too sick to find them. Zurich could have been a fantastic treasure hunt for my camera. 

Timing and Health prevailed. I had an appointment with a ghost. I was back on the train from Zurich to Haldenstein to meet the man who was famous for his creations for a Zen moment. At this moment, the architect Peter Zumthor was more mythical than real to the general public. There was always a prevailing whisper swirling about. He had designed fabulous projects. The whispers sang, “Did you see? Have you heard? Do you know?”. I understood that if I was to make a success of this mission I had to will myself into better health. My health was not ready for my will.

I traveled by train so I could spend some morning time considering what my camera may do with the ghost. I needed to choreograph the possibilities. Pre-visualizing truly gives a photographer a leg up when visiting new environments.

I arrived in Haldenstein  looking like I had a conversation with death. I was not a pretty picture.

Climbing the hills via taxi to my destination made me think about what I understood to be the extreme privacy for the  mysterious figure. I arrived at his studio. I entered with my equipment. Twenty people looked at me as if an intruder had interrupted their way of life. I explained my purpose. I had a date to photograph Zumthor.

Peter Zumthor

The assistant scurried out and came back with, “Mr Zumthor has no recollection of this appointment”. I stammered loudly, “I am not leaving. I have traveled thousands of miles for this, and I have an appointment”.

My whole body was struck with pain from whatever befell me in Vienna. The master entered the room.

He whispers as if words from an Ewok, “I have decided against having my portrait photographed”. There is no such thing as a stare beyond incredulous. I froze for a few ticks. I then bellowed, “not only have I traveled thousands of miles just for you (I lied a bit), and I saw that you posed for that cheesy picture in Vanity Fair!” Our eyes met. He mannered an apology. “My PR people made me do it.”

With that, he asked me to meet him outside. He was heading back up the hill from his studio, presumably to his home (hopefully not to call the police). He said he would return momentarily.

I strolled to the end of the property. I looked out over a princely domain, the municipality of Haldenstein. I was able to stand erect. I needed to immerse myself in lives beyond... This was one of the great reasons I became a photographer.  Thousands of Portraits, thousands of buildings, and I still obsess about why I am a photographer, and what I need to do with my “mind’s eye” in the moment.

I heard some gravel race down the hill. Peter Zumthor walked to me with a tray carrying cappuccinos and cigars. “Do you smoke?”.  And then our session began.

We walked the grounds for about an hour, a cigar’s life. He spoke about his plans for his new atelier. He wanted me to understand the process and the concept for the materials as it related to his vision and the marriage with Haldenstein. He was alive. He was animated. He was speaking to me and addressing his passion(s).

Maybe it was the cigar, the cappuccino or simply the love for what I do...I recognized “god’s light” on my subject and my pulse returned.

We made an interesting collection of images that day. He asked me to stay for lunch. 

I felt I had come to see if the the ghost was real. Peter Zumthor was more than that. They say,”truth is stranger than fiction”. That day, reality was greater than the myth. 

Peter Zumthor was no longer a ghost. For that moment that day he shared his considerations for architecture. I was able to envision his future footprints/designs. As he spoke, they all appeared before me... I was/am privileged.

“Trains, Planes and Automobiles”. I headed back to the train station. The train ride allowed me to reflect on the morning. But the plane flight to my next destination filled me with the time to reflect on my experience.

Peter Zumthor

Fernando Botero Redux

Botero at home

When one arrives in Italy to commune with art history it might as well be in a desert without a natural compass. There is no guidance system, there is only Italy’s cultural tapestry splayed across every fiber of it’s boot. You numerously thrust your diving rod into the depths to locate your baseline. There is only an imaginary baseline.

One might launch his/her life into art. At first it seems like child’s play. Yet in art like life, we learn there is no greatness without a price to pay. I think It is a dream to commune with greatness for artists. To engage in a symbiotic marriage is an act of clarity. The act doesn’t make the art. But the clarity allows you to see the past in your mind, and live it in the present.

For centuries, Italy has embraced the burden of beasts who wanted to live as artists. Those beasts live in her past and present. Fernando Botero is such a beast.

. 

Many years have past since I last photographed Botero. I came to Pietrasanta to revisit our last dance in Paris. A dance in Paris now becomes an aria in Italy. The two worlds need each other, but they live apart.

My appointment with Botero is now a greeting of friends. There is a bit of magic to an embrace of old friends. I guess it is “what is mine is yours”. I am certainly a bit overwhelmed by his residence. The villa sits above the town like a deserving king. It befits his life lived. He is among the most famous contemporary artists in the region. Unlike our first meeting, I find that he has found his comfort in his skin, He no longer needs to impress. 

We sit for lunch and relish the view. If you allow yourself to be transported in time and ignore the tourism, and arts and crafts you can almost smell the marble being transported throughout the regions. Artists from around the world come to Pietrasanta to feel the spirit of Michelangelo. Yes they could stand under or in front of his great paintings. But to hear the call of carrara marble under siege must be exhilarating.

 We plan our time together. First I will make a series of portraits to celebrate this time together. Then the next day we will drive to his (Michelangelo’s) foundry.

Botero in repose

The portraits at the villa are like framing stills for something cinematic. There is the artist and his work. Then his movements with brush and canvas. Then we are transported through a portal of time. We are in a fog of Italian centuries. It is a beautiful motion.

I have for sometime wished that was my lasting visual memory. But the next day we visit art history. We drive the 30 minutes to the carrara foundry. My host cannot be more generous. He  shared his extraordinary treasures of places to dine and see when I am not with him. Sometimes those moments are even more delectable when one adheres to the suggestive voice of a friend. 

Botero in his studio

We arrive at the foundry. I cannot appropriately explain my gasp. But when art is at its best, it needs to be seen in quietude. The replica of “David’s”penis was intact!!!

Yes a funny thought. But more, Italian sculpture for the past 600 years lives here! It was just a novice’s gasp...but one I will enjoy for a lifetime. 

Romance seemed to die like a car wreck on the highway. The foundry is no different than a local car mechanics shop. Has my romantic reverie for another time another way of living an artist quest been shattered? Nope! But jeez, so much cheap magazine pornography strewn from wall to wall. “David” and porn? Maybe. I guess the experience of art as a view into God’s church was squashed a bit.

I made my images of the Rabelaisian sculpture. Giant bronzes stood powerfully. Fernando was the proud father. I embraced my good fortunes. Life was good.

I think experiences can be ephemeral as in fashionable artists, or possibly my Botero experience will live with me as Michelangelo has lived with others for a lifetime. There was a prevailing wind like a lilting aria drifting through my snapshot of time spent with the artist. I no longer danced, but merely inhaled an artist’ dream. 

Botero in the Carrara Foundry

Fernando Botero’s Rabelaisian Effect

The larger than life giants, Rabelais’ Gargantua and Pantagruel roamed the European continent. Their inconceivable bawdiness engulfed Europe. Human fat splayed over the un-suspecting. Then waves of  intestinal excess battered impoverished lives. Now you know you have felt the deluge of the Rabelaisian effect.

Fernando Botero’s art didn’t exactly gush across the  art world by storm. But the affect his work had on the art world was one of surreal wonderment. For years famed Latin American writers Marquez, Fuentes, Llosa and more had been trying to interpret his works. But the truth is revealed only when you meet the man in person.

I have photographed Botero a number of times. Each meeting offered a millimeter of change. But each time I walked away with an arm’s length of rewards. So let’s begin with my first encounter in France.

I arrived in Paris in 1983 to photograph a number of artists living in Paris and the South of France. The list of luminaries: Cesar, Arman, Chagall, Dubuffet, Matta, Masson, Helion, Soulages, Tinguely, and Niki de Saint Phalle were almost the core of French art from the mid 20th Century. The art world had moved to New York at that time, but the galleries and museums that marked the best of Paris were true romance, true history. 1983 was critical for me. I entered hundreds of artist studios. I was getting an education through osmosis. I wanted to caress art. I wanted to see what my camera could see. Studios were the places I could dream in. I wanted to feel the imaginations of others. Many artists from around the world came to Paris to live in that history to feel the romance of the city.

I walked along the Rue du Dragon. For me at the time the 6th arrondissement was the center of Paris. Dragon is a famous street, home to great photographs and great art history. The Colombian artist Fernando Botero’s studio was there. He was “the catch” at that time. He was good and bad famous. Very much acclaimed and popular but with a bit of kitsch. His work was always a bit of fantasy for me, more than cultural dissection.

I arrived. Botero greets me with pleasantries, and initiates the conversation with, “you are going to appreciate my studio. It once belonged to Brassai”. Considering that Brassai was arguably the most famous photographer of the 20th century...I felt enshrined. I looked for the ghosts.

This day was part of a realized dream. Three to four floors of Botero was a bit overwhelming. It was great. Fat people, fat animals, fat fat fat surfaced in dozens of executed paintings and sculptures. There was so much to breathe in. I wanted to touch each and every piece. These are the kind of otherworldly experiences I had dreamed about.

We danced through the afternoon. The paintings and sculptures spun through my mind. I was trying to learn what fat meant. I naively asked. “What’s with all the fat people?”. Botero kindly made reference to culture, circumstances of lives and suggested the more bloated the greater the story. Rabelais lives in Botero.

It was fun to watch and listen and shoot my camera as if we shared a mysterious waltz. Fernando watched my moves, I watched his eyes.

I had accomplished what I was after. I thanked this fabulous man for a great afternoon. He kindly nodded “thank you maestro”. I wondered when I might have an elegant session quite like that again.

I ambled along the crooked cobblestone street towards the Seine...I was in Paris.

Herzog and DeMeuron : The Silence of Architecture

Phyllis Lambert, Jacques Herzog and Pierre DeMeuron

The photography of architecture is very complicated: you need to hear your own voice, and the voice of the architect(s).

Both voices speak with an understanding of two sets of voluble/visible footprints. To marry those voices into a single shot or a thousand becomes the pleasure of the gods.

It is a ride like none other. Imagine  if vertigo is triggered and you are helplessly falling somewhere wildly. Suddenly you discover the silence of architecture.

   I have made the portraits of hundreds of architects, and thousands of buildings, yet only some rare architects have imbued my mind with what that silence means.

I was introduced to Herzog and DeMeuron by one of their earliest clients Alfred Richterich, the Chairman of Ricola.

The Swiss architects had arranged to be photographed in the Prada headquarters NYC that they were designing.

The session was supposed to be Jacques and Pierre for my new book, Portraits of the New Architecture. 

56 Leonard, NYC

This was to be a terrific moment. Something of importance was about to happen. The Prada assistant keeps my company and keeps me calm in a space in mid summer without air conditioning. She promises me a Prada camera bag to keep me relaxed(I never received that bag). I suffered through the anxiety until Jacques shows up sans Pierre. Jacques was three hours late.

I glossed over Jacques apologies. Pierre had other obligations.

At first I thought I would punish Jacques. It was a ridiculous notion. But I turned my lights brightly towards  the three layers of meninges around the brain and watched his skin singe.

Yes it was an out of body experience. It never happened. Though I think the visual notions might have compelled me to make the most unsparingly honest portraits of my career.

Those images are not to be seen today, maybe for another time. Jacques had  shown me a characteristic I had never witnessed/experienced before as a photographer. His apologies for tardiness were dismissing, but his commitment to this portrait session was of complete compliance. Every idea every position Jacques fully participated in.

I learned more than I was prepared for. The day was truly a photographic cathartic release.  Though I might have inadvertently caused some skin to burn. 

Parrish Art Museum
Southampton, New York

Four to five months later I had been invited to the Herzog and DeMeuron retrospective at the Phyllis Lambert’s CCA (Canadian Center for Architecture) in Montreal. Phyllis Lambert is clearly the doyenne of 20th and 21st architecture. Her museum is certainly one of the greatest treasure troves of Architectures episodic history. I was fortunate to have made her portrait in her home earlier in the year.

When I received the invite for the rematch with Jacques and Pierre, I knew I had to approach the session cooler and calmer. The setting was the entry corridor to the museum. This was one of two images I was to make this day. It  was  unique to have Jacques, Pierre and Phyllis in one frame. This moment was to become more than a picture. It was to become my “Educating Rita”. This is where I learned that photography can be a static art without the deeper understanding of the “w’s of inquiry.

Architectural Photography has so many layers...so many needs and necessities. I rein in the camera to share the obvious, and dedicate the tools of photography to deliver more than the eye sees, to surprise!

The session is going smoothly until...

The afternoon was the very special preview for the throngs of well wishers and patrons. They push a bit frantically at the stanchions and red velvet ropes. The chatterboxes were trying to figure out what was occurring. I was in the midst of finishing my moment. The noise was getting louder. Calmly, Jacques stood up and addressed the room of hundreds. “When Richard Schulman is finished  shooting, you can enter”. For me I felt like the “Hulk” at that moment. My swelling confidence  splayed throughout the room.

I completed my portrait. My lesson was about to come to an end. I shook Phyllis’ and Pierres’ hands. Jacques grabs me by my arm. “I want to show you something”. He proceeds to walk me through the entire exhibition space. He says, “I want to share with you what our work is about”. He has me feeling, caressing each and every object in the room.

I am awed by the moment the experience. In this silent moment I said to myself, “wow, how silent architecture is”.

That lesson was maybe 30 minutes. But it has engineered a lifetime of photography since.

Architecture is not silent. Architecture has many sounds, rhythms. When you hear the matters of importance from one of the great voices of our times, you listen.

One stands with the silence of architecture until it speaks.

Prada, Tokyo

Gore Vidal’s Impulse

Gore Vidal inside his Beverly Hills Hotel Bungalow

I remember landing at LAX filled with anticipation for my exciting shoot. I had this stellar commission to photograph the fabulous author Gore Vidal. I had been planning this for sometime. I came armed with dozens of things I wanted to chat with him about.

I arrived at the Beverly Hills Hotel. It sits like an architectural flower on Sunset Blvd. A parade of Palm Trees escort you to the waiting valets.

There was a message with the concierge asking me to wait in the (the famed) Polo Lounge until Mr Vidal is ready. I by chance sat at the bar next to Keanu Reeves. I was drinking a confidence glass of scotch, while Kneau attacked his bowl of salad like a frenzied wolf shredding a bloody carcass. He must have been in a hurry. I took my glass on an amusing roundabout thru the hotel until I was called for. I roamed the lobby thinking about the past glories of the hotel, Beverly Hills and more.

If at various moments in the 20th Century you asked someone who or what was the most recognizable American cultural representation…almost every artistic endeavor would take a back seat to Hollywood and filmdom: Charlie Chaplin, Mae West, Clark Gable, Fred Astaire, and a future litany of Hollywood celebrities.

Beverly Hills became associated with Hollywood as the home of movie stars. On any given day, (swimming through the portals of various decades) you might see Clark Gable driving his Duesenberg along Sunset Blvd, or Fred Astaire sashay up Rodeo Drive with a pink ascot shimmying around his waist. That was another time, another world. When you combine such novels as “Day of The Locust”, “Hollywood Babylon” and hundreds more morphing into “Less Than Zero”, our eyes begin to open to the eccentricity and capricious nature of our cinematic culture. A wild riff should follow on celebrity, filmdom and more. But the above is merely a canvas of ghosts that live in the dreams of hundreds of millions of people who fantasize about the unattainable.

The concierge motioned me to head to Vidal’s bungalow. I reminded myself about the dozens of personalities who could implicitly define our culture past and present, but there was one true “Zelig”, Gore Vidal. Gore’s east coast west coast DNA is made up of Hollywood/Beverly Hills, Newport, R.I, Wash.D.C and European breeding.

I wanted a one on one photography session with a voice that could share people, politics, cultural stories like no other public intellectual could. I got more than i wished for.

I knocked on the door. When Gore opened and greeted me I immediately felt the grip of a man who has lived to see it all. I had admired his literary power for years. Now we were face to face…and I needed to focus on the task at hand.

A photographer has to find the impulses of a subject to make a pic work. My space seemed limited at first. His companion Howard was in the living area, and here I was in the bedroom. We danced, we sparred and I wasn’t gaining any ground. I wanted to feel what I could do. A photographer has to utilize tools to find the button to push. I pushed the wrong button.

We were discussing his new work and how he was trying to get access to his subjects: The mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center attack, Ramzi Yousef, the bomber of the Oklahoma City Federal Building, Timothy McVeigh and lastly the infamous “Unabomber”, Ted Kaczynski.

Gore was planning to visit the federal penitentiaries where they resided. Of course my first instinct was to ask him if I could shoot their portraits for his articles. He at first ignored my interests. He went on to share with me the theme that linked the three men. He was poised to write some pretty outrageous commentary regarding them. He was essentially sermonizing to me for 10 minutes. I abruptly stopped him when he told me that he felt that Timothy McVeigh was a genius. I objected. I never met the man…the little I knew of McVeigh hadn’t convinced me that there was a genius hiding in the dark. Also it was incredulous to me that one of my literary heroes had just unintentionally undermined his own intelligence. I am smart enough to know when I am out of my element. Maybe I had allowed my own earnestness to cross a forbidden boundary. Maybe I was in the wrong. I had dreamed of having an exchange with Gore for years. But I said what I needed to say. Then it happened. Gore was standing maybe 10 feet from where I stood shooting while he sermoned me. He suddenly lunged at me with his fists and face afire. I backed up against the wall while he yelled at me that he gets paid for his thoughts and “you are standing here disagreeing with me for free”.

”Get out of here!!” he screamed.

I felt helpless and horribly slighted. I almost fought with Gore Vidal. I had zero fight in me. I automatically began packing my equipment. There was this dense fury between us. Our eyes never met. Minutes went by, and suddenly as whispering as a priest offering absolution, he offered, “lets take a walk”.

The Bungalows are not a secret at the Beverly Hills Hotel. But they are like a secret garden. I had been there before with a small party. But following Gore’s lead almost hand in hand…was quite eerie. With Sunset Blvd seconds away there was not a sound to be heard. Maybe I was numb.

Gore Vidal just outside his Beverly Hills Bungalow

We walked just for a few seconds when he turned to me with hand extended and apologized. The conversation we had for the next hour was the one I had hoped for from the beginning. He shared family stories: Jackie Kennedy/President Kennedy stories and movie star stories. It was a ramble that endeared me to him forever. It wasn’t the stories I needed. It was merely the voice I wanted. It was a beautiful embrace as we parted.

I popped into my car and headed west on Sunset Blvd

My Affair with David Hockney

David Hockney (1984)

GREAT ARTISTS HAVE A SECRET CODE.
DAVID HOCKNEY SHARED WITH ME THE KEY TO UNLOCK HIS CODE!

I was on my way east on Sunset Blvd. to photograph one of the most recognized artists in the world, David Hockney circa 1984.

It was an important day in my career…I had to create a bit of magic. Joan Didion once told me that she and her husband John used to travel to all points east in Los Angeles. They wanted to discover the grit of of the city. My agenda was simpler, softer. I remembered pre- visualizing the Los Angeles cityscape as an Italian Renaissance Mosaic painting intricately strewn across the hills, mountains and highways. All I had to do was take piece by piece, moment by moment and discover the “aha” shot.

Making my way from Sunset Blvd up through the canyons has always bothered me. You have one road in one road out. A fire or landslide is imminent. You are trapped! That fear of the unknown is not for me.

I love the canyons for what they offer: unique architecture, the Planetarium, the Hollywood Bowl and vistas unmatched in the Los Angeles footprint. But it is simultaneously halting and romantic. One feels for Michael Connelly’s protagonist, Hieronymus Bosch. He resides in a period romantic home…with jazz and vistas enveloping his world. Yet there is darkness and danger at every turn. The “Devils Lair” lives in those hills.

But Woodrow Wilson Drive is home to a collection of cultural celebrities…my mentor Julius Shulman and my subject at hand David Hockney were among the dozens.
As I continued up the road, I remember Julius telling me years before; “ David Hockney lives down the road from me”.

I arrived at Hockney’s home. As he greeted me, I shared with him what Julius Shulman shared. David responded giddy with delight, “I guess I might have to start wearing some clothes around the pool”.
Meeting famous cultural figures looking back more than 30 years in my rearview mirror is always daunting. They are famous for many reasons. Their orbit is theirs… yet they encircle a world history, a cultural identity that few experiences, and few share. Maybe Yo Yo Ma comes to mind as equally gracious with sharing his art and his self.

Hockney in his studio

David walked me around his space. He was looking to make me comfortable. We shared mini stories about artists in common. By that time I had photographed a few hundred…and he had understood thousands. I let him lead the talks.

After a while, he took me over to a giant drafting table. He had these two possibly 17th-century Chinese scrolls. He made me promise that I would not take any pictures of the scrolls. With zero prompting he goes on this riff about the relationship between these scrolls and his photographs and paintings. It was electric to be one on one with a Hockney lecture. He was so passionate so giving. Inch by inch he created a reveal. Every motion of unfurling revealed a segment of the narrative and journey. With every motion, David turned to one of his works to point out the similarities and influences.

Somehow, my photography sessions often produce a seminal moment where I realize I am not merely with an artist but an artist who has a code about his art and life. He gave me the key to both in the most delicate of gestures. He placed my hands on either side of the scroll. He asked me to unfurl slowly, delicately, so I could personally unveil the natural beauty of the earth through this Chinese discipline. Each act of unfurling moment by moment gave me a slight window into David’s world, his need for understanding.

David Hockney examines his work as if he is experiencing a paranormal effect. He intellectually goes through portal after portal finding new dimensions to his work. That is also the “Artists Code”; a constant engagement to what may be more.

Hockney’s gaze

The day is done. I have seen dozens of Hockney photographs, paintings, and drawings. I made a portrait that for 1984 seemed to work for me for that day.

I shook his hand and he walked me out to my car.
As I got in he said,” can you play music, do you have a cassette player?.” I nodded.
He spun around and raced into his house….he came skipping back and said, “play this on your journey home, you will need to unwind a bit”. He told me to take Mulholland over the hills to Beverly Glen and then head south to where I was staying.

I had a convertible… I placed the cassette, a Mendelssohn recording in my player. He told me to return it when I got a chance.

I was clearly dazed and riveted by my afternoon. Hockney knew that I needed to reduce my adrenalin flow a notch or 10. My top was down the music played and the light atop Mulholland breathed the western light and ocean breezes into my brain…It was an out of body experience. I felt the Hockney influence…I was alive again.

I kept the cassette. I never got around to returning it. I am sure he never expected me to. It is a link to a great memory, and it also has David Hockney’s fingerprints all over it!

David at home

Architect Oscar Niemeyer Can Fly

Oscar Niemeyer in his Rio de Janeiro studio

I REMEMBER BEING TOLD A STORY ABOUT THE WRITER OF THE LITTLE PRINCE, ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPERY FLYING DOWN TO RIO DE JANEIRO WITH HIS FRIEND THE ARCHITECT CORBUSIER, TO PICK UP THEIR FRIEND  OSCAR NIEMEYER.

They were going to fly over and around Brazil…which became the canvas for Antoine’s “The Little Prince”.

FLYING DOWN TO BRAZIL IS ONE OF THOSE JOURNEYS THAT CAN PRODUCE MYSTICAL BEAUTY LIKE FEW PLACES ON THE EARTH.  THE DIMINISHING JUNGLE CAN SWALLOW UP DREAMS AND REALITIES IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE. THE PEOPLE CAN DANCE WITH YOU THROUGH THE NIGHT...THE FOOD, DRINK AND OTHERWORLDLY DELIGHTS CAN KEEP YOU AFLOAT ON DREAMS AND MEMORIES FOR A LIFETIME. MY DREAM WOULD BE TO EMBRACE THE TRIO’S VISION, THEIR STORIES ON THAT JOURNEY.

Flying down to Rio allows you to play in your mind every song written about Rio, Ipanema, Copacabana…

Once the playlist rolls through your head, your dreams of what is about to start to become reality.

I was on the plane flying to Rio to photograph Oscar Niemeyer and his work. I was also to photograph the Mayor of Rio, Cesar Maia and  Christain Portzamparc’s Cidade Das Artes in progress.

I was in my element ..." flying down to Rio”.  I was feeling exotic. Exotic to me is being on a surfboard diving towards life and death on the 50-foot wave in Nazare, Portugal or Teahupoo,Tahiti.... yes it is part of a dream... but suddenly my photography dream was becoming a reality.

Casa das Canoas. Oscar Niemeyer’s 1952 designed home

I was visually diagraming in the sky how I was to photograph Oscar Niemeyer.  It was a previsualization moment. It is something I have done for generations. Niemeyer was a force of nature in the world of Architecture.  Few other voices have had an impact on the 20th and 21st Century built designs. Where conformist made great work Oscar created a template for architects to explore themselves and their designs. What was my camera going to deliver? I had to imagine what I might do.

I was suddenly nudged by my flight mate. It turns out he was CIA. We talked and drank for the flight duration. But that story and more is for another 10,000 words another day.

Back to my Dream:

In my life, the photographic experience is the visual realization of a dream come true…It is rare and it is memorable.

The Little Prince is a written dream.  A dream where reality seems within reach. This great story is about adventure and discovery. My camera has been my tool, my instrument my window to the same adventure and discoveries.

Casa das Canoas

I entered his apartment…wide-eyed   not only in anticipation of meeting one of the great figures of modern Architecture but see with my own eyes the life of a design visionary in real time. As I entered my eyes danced around the studio looking at his drawings on the walls…and the ocean/sky horizon outside.

The giant entered the room:

I am 6’3” Oscar is about 5’3. To meet and greet him was kind of awkward. But he was the king…and I am not.

We got on with the pics…i just wanted the lens to absorb the room and sink into the film transparency like indelible ink.

I didn’t want to go “snippety snap snap snap” with my camera. I was supposed to be kind of important, otherwise, why would he allow me there?

I was like a kid. The chaise he sat on…the drawings he surrounds himself with…all  looked sort of old school,

but for me a life’s memory.

Maybe the most interesting part of our exchanges were his queries about all of the Pritzker Prize architects I had photographed. I guess the funniest/awkward moment was; “who is your favorite,? he asked”.

After our shoot, he took me by the hand into his drafting room.

The master placed a pen in my hand…his hand on top of mine on the drafting table atop a sheet of paper. He commandeered my control, and together we drew a beautiful piece together. I was metamorphosed back in time to the innocent I used to be. It was a beautiful moment.

Needless to say, after he signed it, I guarded it like a treasure trove of jewels.  It seems that I came home with many gifts.

I was actually in Rio a week before heading off to São Paulo to photograph Paulo Mendes. I made some architectural images that I am proud of.  Every day from the beaches and more I tried to imagine how my experiences mirrored the Little Prince and his friends.

My afternoon with Oscar lives in my lifetime of real dreams.

The Museum of Contemporary Art of Niteroi

Philip Johnson Naked In the Glass House

Philip Johnson in the Glass House

Be Damned Charlie Rose

One night I was sitting just inside my porch on Lake George. I was watching Charlie Rose interview Philip Johnson on tv in 1998.

I loved listening to Philip's logic his tone his grace his quiet demeanor when Charlie went after him for being a Nazi sympathizer. It was very unnecessary, but Charlie wanted a moment...but didn't get it. Philip danced gracefully around the attack and the rest and past is history.

But what lured me in was the nagging question, why I had not photographed Philip Johnson one of the legendary architects of the 20th century?

Up to this point in my career, I have had the pleasure of being able to photograph almost any cultural personality I chose to pursue!

Here now I was thinking, 'Jesus I have to meet this man before he dies...90 something’. How remiss I would have been not to have included someone so significant so influential/iconic, almost otherworldly at the time. My immediate judicious step was to call my friend Richard Meier. Richard is a protective sort of guy. His world is his world…But he has always been generous with me. So he made the connection for me. I called and set up an appointment…fortunately, I found out later that Philip and his partner David knew my work and thought of me as the next Irving Penn…or so they generously said. Well, of course, I never became the next …but it was a subtle stroking that I appreciated immensely since Irving was one of my photography heroes. So in December of that year, I headed up to New Canaan Ct on one of the most gorgeous days. It was crisp fresh and perfect for my camera sans lights…

Glass House - New Canaan, CT

I remember taking the train from Grand Central. I entered the station at an early morning hour. For a moment I felt I had walked into a frame of the history of photography: the light streaming in through the windows of the station looking just like that classic Lewis Hine image. Geoff Dyer’s “The On-Going Moment” warned me of these engagements, where you are in the present but really a link to the past. I am on the train thinking about that Lewis Hine…thinking about Philip and what I must do to make something memorable something that people can talk about, something that means that I made a memorable moment with a memorable person.

I always enter a space wondering if this is the time that matters…all photographs matter. There is an inspiration that works. it works like a wand guiding light for your eyes to live and see the moment, to seize the moment. It is almost like asking your camera to do something extra for you.

My Pentax 6x7 has seen so many moments that you sort of ask if the camera can pull off one more dance move…a capture that you weren't prepared for but suddenly it is there. The moment is an experience that comes to life and becomes not merely an experience but something you have dreamed of seeing your whole life as a photographer. It is a ridiculous notion but any photographer worth anything, really does have that inner heart that speaks to the moment. When entering in the experience as if you are in control, what happens is that you and your subject marry an idea to get there. It is this sort of an orchestra conductor’s moment where you take control and something that just magically becomes the photograph. Think about how boring it might be if you take the same idiotic photograph everyday…but instead made a rubik dance between you the light the space your camera your subject. Faster and faster all the squares move around until everything comes to a standstill and you say; “Philip …” don’t move!”. You know that that is the image that is the dream. It is of course only for you. Nobody else loves the moment as you do. It is why one becomes a photographer to show the rabbit pop out of the magician’s hat! One day with luck, you will show it to everyone out there and have that aha moment, not for yourself but that aha moment to a discerning audience! Ok, So now I arrive...

Walking into the Glass House for the first time, is kind of like entering a cathedral of architecture. The House is almost folklore for the second half of the 20th century architecture. You breathe the past the present and the future in one inhale, your exhale is nirvana.. Philip sits at his desk engaged in a jousting match with Herbert Muschamp: The former NY Times Architectural Critic.

It turns out they had been discussing me. Philip and Herbert seemed to be bandying my name about like a shuttlecock. Philip hung up and said, “ Tell me, Mr. Schulman, where shall we begin?

For the next 3-4 hours, we raced through all of the structures on the property. Philip outpaced me in every way.

He was marvelously striding as if floating on clouds, I was taking deep breaths hoping not to show my immediate need for assisted living. I was huffing and puffing, taking this and that pic.

But from every word we shared about Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas and dozens of other architects…i was getting an education.

It was a life experience, a moment only the camera and memory would share with me.

The apex of the day was certainly in the Sculpture Gallery. Light speaks to photographers as light speaks to flora…we grow with every movement of light in a space of time.

We entered the space…I knew instantly that this was my space my moment. I made like a spinning top twirling down the steps to know if my mind’s eye was right. Shadows were dancing everywhere…. I raced back up the steps and had Philip stand in his/my light…god’s actually but …better, nature’s light.

I yelled To him, “Stop! where you are, face the light…I asked him. He was totally bewildered, but he obeyed, finally …and “click”.

I went to him and grabbed his hand and said thank you. He was a bit stunned that the session was over.

I spun around and for one second I thought my light had a bit of a link to Hine’s Grand Central Station…a link to the “On Going Moment”.

Philip suddenly remembered that when we met I had told him that I had a special request.

He asked me to share the request. We strolled over to the pool in front of his Glass House. I stared into 90 years of a life lived.

I said, ”Philip, I want to shoot you naked”. This was a WOW! Factor. He suddenly looked like a cherub with a dream in his mind. His visage of 90 transformed into a 4 year old in an instant.

At that moment his partner David drove up. Philip told me that he needed to speak with David first.

After a brief chat, he came back to me and said he couldn’t do it. He thought it was the most amazing request. I tried to persuade him that Philip Johnson naked in the Glass House would be amazing!

’I don’t want to see your private parts, just the idea of the naked creator in the Glass House would be epic, I begged’.

“David wants to protect my legacy”.

I begged some more to no avail.

David later drove me back to the train station.

He said Philip probably had the best time with you out of all of his photography sessions!! “You are probably our present day Irving Penn, but I just cannot allow Philip to be shot naked in the Glass House…he mumbled with a smile, “ Philip Johnson naked in the Glass House….”

Yes, I could write another 10,000 words on that day…

Arata Isozaki

Arata Isozaki: 2019 Pritzker Prize Recipient

Izosaki at the Guggenheim Museum- New York, NY

Hold on to your space suits!

Have you ever felt the full force of tiny asteroids the size of diamonds flying with full force pelting your face into full shock...somewhere between a stoned death and/or a cryogenic freeze?

In 2003 After flying 15 hours from New York to Tokyo I was all jacked up to have an amazing photography experience shooting some of the most exciting voices in the architectural world?

Aside: A scary fun thought, all of them have been awarded the Pritzker Prize!

Ok back to my nightmare! I have arrived in Japan to photograph Tadao Ando, Toyo Ito, SANAA, (Kazuyo Sejima,and Ryue Nishizawa) Shigeru Ban and Arata Isozaki. I was in Tokyo to shoot for my book, “Portraits of the New Architecture”.

What a trip I imagined!!!!!!!!! Portraits of these great faces, and an imaginary escape ala Ian Fleming’s “Thrilling Cities” through the brightest and darkest spots of Tokyo. I wanted to find the aforementioned architects best examples of architectural design in Tokyo. Yes I could have traveled the earth claiming their most famous most known works, but making this about one trip one city one moment is truly better for me than following the myth of Ando or Brancusi; walking the land across nations to learn about Architecture or Sculpture.

Moca - Los Angeles, CA.

I wanted immersion.

A funny thing happens to me when I travel for work,there is an electric gene that goes off and flips me a visual thought about photography. Nothing is off limits; lying on my back, camera dangling out of taxis, trains, planes and beyond to experience a new perspective.

For those who travel and those who don’t, there is the notion that we need to walk the streets endlessly to discover, ergo to know how a city breathes.

So, I begin racing through the streets to capture Tokyo with whatever my camera will allow.

I arrive at my hotel, a non distinctive place to rest my head.

Before I can breathe a note of joy, I call my first subject, SANAA.

“Sorry they are not available”. Hold on, what the &%$#@ effing are you talking about? I flew here just for them a (mini lie) and their schedule has suddenly changed?

Ok so now I hang up and dial one through six.

Looking back it is like being in a cloud of some drug induced confusion. Everyone of the architects changed their schedules at the same time?????.

So I played Sun Tzu in my mind.

I had a plan, I wasn’t going to allow for a mental breakdown to diffuse the larger plan.

Jet lag gripped me ...if I change time zones by an hour my body my mind becomes dis- functional by minutes, hours and years.

So after a delightful tasty collection of a sushi, sashimi tasty delight I went to sleep with a new attitude.

I awoke to an everything mattered mantra, every waking moment was a “visual feast”...my wife’s line!

I walked, rode the train, walked and rode the train some more.

At the end of the first day, I collected my inner Caesar., ”Veni,Vidi,Vici…”.

I telephoned each of my portrait moments.

“Hey I am here for just you...give me 10 minutes...in and out of your lives...and in my book!

Soulful responses poured out, a thousand apologies!

Everyone gave me the time that is emblematic of Japanese courtesy.

But why I am writing this blog, is because I felt I needed to share one of the more embraceable days as a photographer…photographing (iso), Arata Isozaki.

My last day, my last session made me think about something larger than my mere images.

A photographer’s life is defined by the experience at hand.

I arrived at “Iso’s studio.

Arriving in the Roppongi District of Tokyo was pretty electric. It was a bit like Times Square with a phallic Mori Tower flailing in the center.

But Iso’s studio is calm and discreet.

Warmly greeted, we began our sparring as almost all portrait sessions have a bit of a dance in them. I could write/speak for hours about the dance of a photographer’s session!

We spoke about many things...everything from the perception of light by a Japanese Architect and how that differs from a Western Architect. We playfully critiqued famous architects in general...some great zingers but also so many shares about architects revered. It was an exchange of casual intellectualism.

A short while in, he gets a call, he must speak to a client.

Palau Sant Jordi- Barcelona, Spain

He apologizes, but then hands me a monograph on Herbert Bayer. it is a terrific edition that fortunately or not, I had to read for over an hour. To keep me occupied while I was reading Iso also shared a delicacy from where he was raised. It was some awful barely edible type of sweet potato.

But I survived and he returned and our dance card wasn’t up.

I proceeded to attempt to make a portrait that pushed the boundaries of light and camera. I wanted to explore what color and light could look light in a 10’x12’ office space.

Yes you will have to go to my website to see what I achieved. For me, it was a moment. For photography? It is what it is!

The whole experience lasted about 4 hours. It was much longer than the original 10 minute intended program.

But what separates this moment from the other 5000 portraits, is that Isozaki generously invited me to dinner at a British private club.

We with 2 of his assistants arrived at the club. He pulled me aside and told me that traveling alone can be trying and lonely, so he wanted to share a couple of things.

First: he wanted me to experience an exhibition of Corbusier paintings, drawings and sculpture. It was a mini retrospective. We collected a glass of wine and I listened to him share his thoughts on Corbusier, and the art itself. If you like or even appreciate architecture, you can bet that the time walking through the gallery was simply stunning and amazingly stimulating. The fact that it was a sharing experience is such a rare treat. Needless to say it was great!

Then he topped this generosity off when we sat down to dinner. We were on about the 20 something floor...he said, “I didn’t want you to be homesick for New York. I wanted you to have a New York experience in Tokyo in case you were homesick”. So there we were gazing over the city lights as I do in New York City.

Most of you might know that I am older than Methuselah...but it was truly a tender moment.

After a great meal, and more conversation we said our goodbyes. His assistants took me to some club which was for anyone younger than I was.

After awaking the next day I thought how I have traveled more than half the world, yet every once in awhile a true spirit makes one day out of a million a bit of heaven.

Isosaki’s Studio