A Master of 20th Century: My afternoon in Man Ray’s Studio

Juliet Man Ray in Man Ray’s studio 1983

I remember.

I was walking along with the Director of The State Hermitage Museum in 1985. Saint Petersburg was still. The museum was closed. Not a whisper, only the sounds of two pairs of shoes pacing through the galleries. We were on our way to the Gold Room. I suddenly stopped and made a perfect 360 pirouette. My equipment in tow, spun around like helicopter rotor blades preparing for takeoff. The whole nano second allowed me to realize (like other grand museums I have photographed) that I was alone with some of the greatest examples of art history.

There is the obvious pleasure of privilege. But more importantly, these moments are what I get to take to my grave. I get to live and relive a lifetime of experiences.

The art in museums that I have caressed with my fingertips live in The Louvre, 

The Tate, The Met, The Prado and many more. But only the tiny studio at 2 bis rue Ferou in Paris has taken my breath away.

I have admired dozens of photographers/artists in my life. It is Man Ray’s life and work that has been most inspirational to me.

I was early for my appointment. So I strolled through the Luxembourg Gardens. I imagined what Seurat or Van Gogh saw before me. I found that my anticipation for my visit to the studio eclipsed any sightings I hoped to conjure up.

Man Ray’s wife Juliet greeted me on a beautiful spring afternoon in 1983. Man Ray had passed in 1976.

Juliet invited me in.The aged beauty took my hand. She was naked before my eyes, but not. I have wanted to have these experiences everyday of my life. I have wanted to hear the life experiences of others. I dreamed of living in a page in Vasari’s “The Lives of Artists. This moment was quietly touching my dream. I was ecstatic. My eyes glanced in every direction. For a moment I felt that I was a prop in a surreal dream. I tried to absorb the artists’ life.

I breathed.

Surrealism is a waltz with the mind. It is a human experience that summons exploration. This Man Ray space was the dream I have dreamed about for a lifetime. Yes I was 20 something.

We sat next to each other on the sofa. The studio unfurled before me. I adored every facet of the space.

Juliet turned to me and asked if I would like some coffee? And asked If I would like to see pictures of her when she was young and beautiful? While she prepared the coffee, Juliet landed on my lap the most beautiful book of nudes I have ever seen. Twenty nude portraits that made me tear. I realized I would never make something so beautiful in my career.

With coffee in hand, she turned each page. From the very first image she spoke about Mans’ photographic intentions. As each image appeared there was this quivering I couldn’t explain. I was young, but greatness unfolded before my eyes.

I asked if I could wander around the studio. I needed to see the space. I needed to stand away. I needed to imagine how Man Ray might have worked.

Minutes later I made my move. “Are you ready?” I asked.

I nervously suggested that she place one of Man’s masks on.

My time as a photographer disappeared before a magician could say “presto”.

I felt like Mathias Rust landing in Red Square. Everything was more than I could imagine. Life was bigger than I was. I made a photograph.Maybe I am a footnote in some book somewhere.

I didn’t want to leave, but soon I was gone.

That year in Paris was probably the most significant year in my career. That afternoon with Juliet was something more.

Juliet Man Ray in Man Ray’s studio 1983

Do Buffaloes Smile: My Dance with European Art Curator Sir John Pope Hennessy

By the time I made this portrait of Sir John Pope-Hennessy, I had maybe made 500 portraits. The 80’s were a whirlwind affair with people from all walks of life. Some days were rudderless, others a bit of a gale storm on wheels. I flew through the lives of so many people, my memory reminds me of the quagmire I engaged along each road to success or failure.

Rupert Murdoch and his gang had invaded New York and beyond. There was a ton of activity between continents. But, I saw a new consistency. Just about every conceivable conductor of our cultural venues belonged to someone from the British Isles. I was fascinated by the invasion. What had happened to drive so many personalities across the Atlantic? I felt the wind at my back. It was an agenda to drive me.

What transpired was a series of Black and White portraits. I have no memory of why the series became Black and White. So this color photographer ventured into foreign territory. I made about 25 portraits of powerful and unique British personalities.

Walking into the home of Sir John Pope-Hennessy was like sneaking into multiple museum vaults. Art history unfolded before my eyes. This was a special entree.

I was given strict orders not to photograph the collection. It made me feel closeted in the midst of some covert MI6/KGB affair. So quiet. So eerie. So beautiful. So many British cultural elites seem to be born into spydom. Maybe this was a moment.

Pope-Hennessy was a formidable personality. His  connoisseurship was atop the international art world. He knew where all the great European paintings rested. 

My portrait session was fast and furious. He shared some terrific stories. We were done. I committed to a date to review my test prints.

I returned a week later to his Park Avenue home. 

Before I could drop my coat and show the portfolio of portraits, Pope-Hennessy offered and poured immediately a whiskey. His bar was a few feet from where I sat. The glass with rocks dancing was in my hands swiftly.

He glossed over my pics. He recounted stories about photographs of Canova’;s sculpture. He thought for a moment that my portraits of himself had a likeness to the Canova pieces.

Yes yes I was flattered. 

Another scotch was passed to me. I think over an hour 4 to 5 drinks had been consumed. For the moment I can’t remember eating anything.

Suddenly, Sir John Pope Hennessy steered a glance towards me, “Your photographs are brilliant. I will want some copies”. I was elated.

But he quickly added, “ do you have any plans for the evening?”. I said “no”. He said, “which kind of porn do you prefer to watch”. There was a pause that felt like hours, but was more like a nano second. He added, “heterosexual? Or man on man?”.

I flinched. He leaned forward. Both hands aside my head. “There is a dvd rental store quite close. We could order some food and any movies you prefer”.

At that point I looked into his eyes. I felt what seemed like a gigantic head, a Buffalo’s head leering at me. I think he smiled. But I glimpsed at his crocodile eyes and I knew I had to disappear. 

Imagine the sounds of a rafter of wild turkeys shimmying under a country fence. I am six foot three. I am considered a big person. I uttered some sounds as I shimmied under his arms. I blindly grabbed my portfolio and my coat.

I found myself exhaling on Park Avenue.

I certainly embarrassed myself. I certainly lost a sale. I thought, “instead of a little bit of sex, me and my feathers flew out of Sir John’s apartment”.

Oh well. My heart raced for a few weeks.

Searching for Carmen: From Barcelona to Seville

I remember tiptoeing through Seville searching for the ghost of a woman. It was like dancing with silk swallowtail wings amid a Sirocco wind.

The formidable Carmen, part femme fatale, part heroine. She is a true fable for cameras and archeologists to search for.

I likened myself to the French writer/archeologist Merimee, and the composer Bizet before me. I wanted my pictures to embody this woman’s story. I hoped my travels would become a great history for my camera.

I have been documenting my life through portraits and architecture for many decades. The idea of searching for Carmen from Barcelona to Seville seemed like a rewarding respite from my photographic routines.

I chose to begin my travels in Barcelona to prepare my camera and my eyes for the Castilian light I would engage in Seville. 

I knew it was a good decision when I started to notice how light flitted atop the junctions of buildings and encroached upon shadows that may have hidden secrets of Castiles’ past. 

As I watched the lights advance through the days like armies in the night, I knew that something was fresh before my eyes. I realized that the Carmen led narrative might  advance my notions of photography. All photographers need a narrative of sorts.

Even when a goal might seem unattainable it is the narratives’ meaning that inspires and keeps us afoot. Alas, I knew I would not find Carmen in Barcelona.

Armed with visual inspiration I arrived in Seville, to stir up the Castilian streets. 

Instantly the streets were enrapt throughout with Bizet’s Carmen. I listened to Flamenco steps echoing between the streets. Merimees’s story of love and tragedy guided my camera.

The mysteries of light and shadow enabled me to espy the ghost of Carmen in ways I could never have imagined. At first it was dark in the way that Holly Martins espied his friend Harry Lime in Carol Reed’s “The Third Man”. Between shadows lurked my subject. I knew that she was there. I knew that Carmen did not want to be found. I was certain that the reality was a dream. 

I quietly heard deafening shouts of “Ole!” from the bullring. My prey was still at large.

I moved my camera to the cafes. Just maybe she was dancing and mingling among the throngs...The hide and seek was powerful. I felt the power of a new angle of repose  would allow me to consider what I have seen what I have missed. 

I recounted how the cityscape showered me for days with so many visual treats. I crossed so many miles looking for just one single capture.

My stay in Seville was a chapter from a novel mystery. The many adventures I had, allowed me to see Carmen through Spain’s history.

My mind’s eye captured part of a time capsule that has served this photographers’ visual feast for decades.

I never did find Carmen.

From London, to Berlin, to Los Angeles: A marriage

A young man journeys away from the British pronouncements of “Rule Britannia” to the ringing German endorsements of Sieg Heils to the sonorous shores of California where “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself”.

Fortunately Christopher Isherwood found a pronounced spirit of endorsements and calm in the Palisades of Southern California.

Half a century later I had traveled through the same  British and German cities and landscapes. I had certainly lived a dreamy calm in Southern California.

My camera  has been an enabler for four decades. There are tales my camera shares. There are stories I need to tell. I have hundreds of stories ahead. Today, the sanctuary of Los Angeles is a nice place to start.

The hundreds of the cultural puzzle I would  come to know were artists, collectors and the peripheral world where dreamscapes informed my eyes. The LA art world had intimate vistas and intricate intimacies for my camera from 1983 until 1990. It seemed for awhile that my life was made up of days gazing at Leger’s, Picasso’s, Jackson P’s, Diebenkorn’s a Ruscha’s and Warhol’s and hundreds  more artists that were laid bare for me to admire.

While the above seems otherworldly and delightful, I still wanted a bit of television gamesmanship: Behind curtain number one...!

A friend of mine, a well known artist at the time suggested I photograph an interesting artist who had lived an interesting life. I arranged for an invitation to photograph the portrait artist Don Bachardy.

I drove along Sunset Blvd, somewhere between Santa Monica and the Pacific Palisades. I was soon to be  a party to California’s hypnotic coastline and all the trimmings the mythical Sirens offered. I safely turned towards Bachardy’s studio.

Before I exited my convertible, I fondly remembered the writers Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne rhapsodizing about their weekend drives to locations unknown. Most of their weekends were a spirited driving excursion for the sake of discovery and awareness.

Like Joan and John, I  too drove the nearly 500 square miles Los Angeles offered me. In some ways the Los Angeles cultural history is the most American in our 50 states. The immigration maps are indelibly drawn by  generations of Chinese, Japanese, Hispanic, British, German and so many more. I reminisce and coddle the city’s histories.

A blond tan man with thick rimmed glasses greeted me. It was Bachardy. How could I miss him, his German Expressionstic Blue Rider style self portraits blanketed the sun drenched walls. This was what a California studio was supposed to be like.

We moved along his terrace. We gazed at the ocean. This was an art experience that was foreign to me. There were no challenges, no challengers. The sun drenched rooms ruled my karma.

As I sort of danced through the spacious environs with cameras in tow I came face to face with a new set of eyes.

This short squat handsome older man was smiling wide. Bachardy introduced me to his partner, Christopher Isherwood! “Cabaret” anyone?

The generations we look forward to and the generations we embracingly reminisce about are our DNA. Without the the two we are empty vessels. My life as a photographer has been about connecting the dots.

Christopher Isherwood’s “Berlin Stories” and other writings were the template for Cabaret and many other plays and movies. Can’t you hear Liza loudly whispering,”Thank you Christopher”.

For the next hour or so the three of us chatted. But all I wanted him to talk about was the voices of the German Palisades. Thomas Mann, Bertolt Brecht, Arnold Schoenberg and Billy Wilder and more emigrated to Los Angeles before World War Two. It seems that the Palisades was the most German commune. Cultural phenomenons were at my finger tips.

Oscars, Nobels, and Pulitzers reveals were  within a petal’s whisper.

I decided that I wasn’t creating a cultural  biography. I instead kept my camera at work and pocketed my curiosity for another day.

As I began to make the pictures that mattered, I realized that sometimes the experience of great company, is a life to be lived.

BALI: DANCING WITH CHARLIE CHAPLIN’S HOLLYWOOD

Arriving at my Balinese moment

Charlie Chaplin suddenly reached out and grabbed my hand. Like two star struck travelers we journeyed through Balinese history together. 

When you travel, history touches your heart, stories disappear into your eyes.

I dreamed that Chaplin and Schulman encountered the Indonesian jungles together. I dreamed that we strode by the edge of innumerable rivers. Snakes and dragons beckoned us to caress the waters. The jungles whispered to us gently, “join us”.

I grabbed my heart. Of course I am romanticizing. But Bali is truly a spirited elixir.

Dreaming in Bali

Charlie Chaplin sailed to Bali in 1932. I flew in 2000. Our stories melded generations of cultures. From early in the 20th Century, to the beginning of the 21st Century, many thousands of people have traveled to Bali seeking a spiritual discovery. A spirited elixir is like discovering a river of gold. In fact all gods believe it is like discovering an invitation to a life lived and a window into the life ahead.

Chaplin (depending on the story you want to embrace) was looking for a step ladder towards his next story. I was merely saying hello to a dream.

Chaplin might have  traveled with a Hollywood celebrated crew (Paulette Goddard, Charles Laughton and more) looking for what some Balinese exotica might contribute to their careers. I just wanted to feel a visual discovery fused into my eyes to remember for a lifetime.

Bali seems to exemplify a “False/Truth”. Everything is absolutely real to the naked eye. Everything is a dream conjured from myth. You step ashore and drift into an imaginary world that you hope is real, but the only truth is the dream that you take home with you. We visit because we want to imagine what might be real. Bali is a trap laid out by thousands of myths.

I traveled from the formations of 20-30 foot waves to the ridges of jungles that the monkeys ruled. I tasted the fruits.I enjoyed my trip as if a precious stone was within an eyes’ grasp.

My shooting commission was a grouping of the Four Seasons and more. I photographed numerous artists and too many temples. I shot colored kites and colored banners across rice fields and oceans. Bali was a voluptuous adventure for my camera.

Designer John Hardy

My travels with Chaplin reminded me of Marc Chagall’s “The Dance”. We floated through dreams together. We realized that Bali becomes a private vault for your dreams today and for everyday after. The experience married my past and my present, to my memories for my future.

I sat along side the pilot in the cockpit of Singapore Air. I was now heading home. The pilot asked me about my experiences traveling to Bali. I could only utter as I gazed  across the skies from 30,000 feet that, “I had a Chaplin moment”.

Architecture’s Dance Partners

Architect Norman Foster ( left) dancing with Richard Rogers in London

Often I stroll through a cityscape or a rural main street. My eyes espy the natural flow of a country’s aged life. For decades the moment is what compels me to realize that my purpose is to record life’s life. I have traveled half the world relocating my eyes to what matters. I stand on a street corner in cities among continents considering how history changes.

London’s Walkie Talkie by Rafael Vinoly

 In life’s true spirit I capture the hands of an octogenarian couple who mirror the test of time. Their gait, dress, the doffed cap the curtesy address generations of a life lived. These youthful  ghosts of eras past, are architecture’s embodiment.

Frank Gehry designed the “Dancing House” (The Nationale Nederlanden building) in Prague. It appears that there Are two buildings on the dance floor. “Fred and Ginger” are a psychiatrist’s dream. If only they were on the couch. But here they are. A Gehry stands on the corner for all to witness the architecture dance. It is a tango.

I have photographed hundreds of architects and thousands of buildings.

What I have learned is that architecture is like a collection of musical notes. Sometimes the sounds are heralded as lifetime achievements. Sometimes one needs to realize that the greatest intentions fail miserably. Imagine a Paul McCartney, Jessye Norman duet. They  might sound like a begging Macaw. Yo-Yo Ma and Ginger Baker might sound like a fox wrestling in a chicken coop. The truth is that all architecture either sings melodious dreams or cacophonous nightmares.

Over the years I have been fond of watching the styles and the footprints of structures mingle together. We all know that the best dance partners are the ones whom are most comfortable together. Like dance, you  want your partner  to keep up with you, and sufficiently hold you up in the right light. It doesn’t always work out that way.

I regard a portrait of a building as I might a person. They both reveal similar characteristics when approached properly. As the light changes, so does the personality. I love marrying the light to the character. 

I  remind myself of the couple holding hands as they stroll along the streets. I reflect on their aged life as I would on a couple of buildings living intimately for so many years together. So much has changed in the time from when they first met. How have they aged together. Why have they stayed so long together? 

The history of architectural photography speaks to the growth of our planet, and the need to grow together. Just sometimes, we need to jettison the weight of our past to spring forward. But then it is possible that architecture’s promise for the moon is just that...

We must be careful how the city chooses its partners. It could be a heavenly choice for the gods or a nightmare for a lifetime.

MY EYES ON RUSSIA

MY EYES ON RUSSIA

The Psychiatrist and the Artist

I stood guard by Dostoyesky’s bed. The River Neva was  close to flooding his home. A bounty of words embraced my gaze. Frozen, I imagined a pattern of a million Monarch Butterflies escaping the deluge. Each fluttering wing carried dispatches from Fyodor: “Save my words, Save my legacy”. Dostoyevsky’s home was quickly a memory.

My eyes have seen more than my camera. But there is an indelible imprint on my brain that influences me while I travel for new experiences. The ghosts of Russia’s past: Babi Yar, Tzars and Tzarinas and whatever else I have encountered “Beyond the Pale”, live inside of me. Fortunately I have 100 stories I can tell, and 100 stories I shouldn’t tell.

Lenin at rest

Saint Petersburg is a city of ghosts. My driver (a former Dakar Rally participant) frequently showed off his skills on the snow swept streets. The fun was his, the thrill was mine.

We sped around corners and across avenues. I saw every hero and heroine in shades of ghosts, seemingly slink back into their temporary home in Novodevichy Cemetery. Though I had an intended agenda at hand I embraced every historical moment as if it was my present.

On this particular journey I was to photograph numerous cityscapes, and engage what seemed to be an arena of portraits. All of my moments have impacted me through the years, but some leave an impression that never escape my psyche.

I have always been intrigued by the former Soviet Union. Russia’s heaven and hell are like the poet John Donne’s twin compasses in “A Valediction Forbidding Mourning”: where one goes so does the other.

I walked into the Psychiatric Hospital led by a psychiatrist who cared for a patient he wanted me to meet. I was told that the artist Yakov Lev was committed in the 1960’s. Apparently he wandered the streets talking to himself?

It was imperative that I not speak english in the asylum, outsiders were forbidden. Most importantly I was not to speak in front of Yakov, because he hated Americans?

There were no sounds of footsteps or a living soul in any of the corridors. We walked silently surrounded by green walls and dimmed fluorescent lights. I felt as if this was my last light.

We entered the artist’s combined 10’x12’ bedroom and studio. He did not greet me when I entered. He was told that I did not speak Russian...

For two hours, the psychiatrist tried to coax the artist toward the easel. Yakov looked toward the easel several times as if he was trying to remember what it was for. My heart broke several times during this session. 

The easel was seasoned with 30 years of paint mixed for another day. A canvas appeared atop the easel. A gesture with paint and brush addressed the canvas.

The psychiatrist seemed pleased. The artist seemed stifled. The photographer found the pose through the viewfinder. There were just a few moments left. The two men needed to rely on each other. I sat poised.

Later, I walked out of the asylum. Pieces of a man’s life died in my eyes.

I felt a bit empowered by the dread of what life might become for some. I was softly embraced by the ghosts past and present. What followed on this particular journey was extraordinary.

Self Portrait gazing into history

MY SURREAL AFTERNOON

John Piper, England 1983

The road to Buckinghamshire could conceptually be mistaken for  something magically Orwellian or a Lewis Carroll intervention. This beautiful Fall day traveling from London, was shepherding me onward to the home of the surrealist artist John Piper. The Fall leaves curiously danced among the trees. The sunlight was bending along the roads.

There was something of a new experience about to happen. Countries, cities and landscapes engulfed every living visual moment. So many days and nights in my life seemed like I was following Alice down the rabbit hole. Lewis Carroll’s surreal fiction enlivened my road to Buckinghamshire. It is slightly possible that I was the mad hatter, if I may, through the looking glass.

The Director of the Marlborough Gallery was driving me to my destination. The sporty car was careening from side to side. I was in a false heaven. It was a great way to dream about what photographs were about to happen. The mind’s eye was on steroids.

We arrived at our Buckinghamshire destination. Imagine an animated broom hilda running at you wide eyed and crazed with joy. This bucket of love waved her arms wildly and declared, “you are here! Welcome Mr Schulman”. I was twenty-eight years old, mr. was a bit alien to me.

“Richard, this Is John’s wife, Myfanwy Piper".

You just have to love the embrace of history’s grip when you realize you have morphed into a past century while imagining the future of the present century. I did not recognize this name Myfanwy, this ball of aged youth spun so tight. She was John Piper’s lifelong dance partner.

I was welcomed. Nothing quite feels like being engaged into Myfanwy's arms. She ordered me to follow her. I marched behind this beautiful magpie of energy, this light of my day into this converted farm house.

I came face to face with the living embodiment of an El Greco portrait. John Piper’s features mimicked El Greco’s dependency on elongated skeletal structures. Yes, Piper’s life dance card was nearing the end of its usefulness. Yet those golden sea blue eyes just awed my visual sensibilities. My eyes were in flux. A myriad of dreams entered my brain. I saw what will become a portrait in a fleeting blink.

The four of us carved into what looked like a 20-30 pound poached salmon breathing but lifeless on the dining table. This became what life should be: a few hours of pleasant moments hosted by my new favorite Myfanwy. Say it out loud and she will become your next child's name. John Piper felt otherworldly. Myfanwy was a dream. I was part of an artist’s canvas.

A sudden thunderclap silenced the gaiety. "Richard you know we have to leave soon. You are going to shoot John?” Said the Marlborough dealer. I knew after sharing two bottles of a crisp white wine, a bite of salmon and more, someone was going to say “picture time”. My dreamy mind woke up to a pressing reality.

John and I walked out of the house towards the other barn. We got to the door and I stepped over a 20-30 foot Calder Mobile strewn in the hay as if it was meeting death. John stopped me from thinking too much; "Calder and I  were such good friends. I never knew where to put it. It became an entrance into my world. It is my reminder of where I have been, who I have known, what I do, and why I make art".

“Really?" I said. ”Maybe” he said. With a pat on my shoulder we entered his church. It was just crazily intimate. Many small pieces languishing near larger pieces. Art, art, art, art. I quickly flung my fingers around as if I was going to taste all the paint. I was swallowing the life of an artist.

“So Richard”, John said, “where is the portrait to be made?". “Just here” I said.

Eight frames later I looked up at John Piper, and asked him to close his eyes softly. A quiet click from my Nikon. I slowly whispered “excuse me” with my hand extended. His eyes fluttered a bit. I said, “Thank you for an incredible day”. John said, “you are done?”

I grabbed  both his hands and smiled.

My life (as it always does) seemed to have changed. I knew that the moment his eyes closed, his elongated figure was my portrait. I came to know what was the picture, it wasn't just a picture but the moment where you stood face to face with the most important facet, the experience. There was no more energy to shoot another. Why make something from nothing? Why not just shoot what was given and stop. Eight frames of looking, one frame of quietude. There has not been another picture in thirty-five years that met my eyes like the Piper that day. The light the colors the stretch of the imagination, the silence in the room, live in my memories for another day.

We drove home back to London. I spoke just a few breathless words with the dealer.

For me it was my Churchillian moment. A young man had made something.

John and MyFanwy Piper ,,,Buckinghamshire 1983

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.

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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.