ABSTRACT
As an early teen, I began a lifelong habit of taking a camera everywhere, and in particular on frequent trips into New York City, about a 30-minute train ride from where our family lived. I wandered the streets with a friend, exploring neighborhoods and taking pictures like those of the New York and Paris street photographers whose work I saw in museums. I became a fan of black-and-white photojournalism in Look and Life magazines and the cityscape photography and photo portraits of Cartier-Bresson, Brassai, Kertesz, Atget, and Walker Evans. Photography continues to inform my painting to this day in terms of cropping and a preference for unusual angles that camera use brought to the consciousness of painters like Degas.
