I was moved to do something about it.
So, I began going out early in the morn-
ing in New York. This wasn't a destina-
tion. I knew this wasn’t what my life’s
work would be about, but it was an exer-
cise that I gave myself, a self-assignment.
I’d go out around 6 a.m. on Sundays
because if you photograph the streets
with one person on it, you look at the
person. I didn’t want to look at the
person. I wanted to see these places
empty. I developed a technique where
I could put my camera up against the
glass to keep out reflections and shad-
ows and actually get the feeling of
being inside a given space.
What camera were you work-
ing with?
It was a Nikon. When I went to Rus-
sia in 1958, I took a borrowed Argus
C3, then I started using a borrowed
Minolta until I could afford to buy
myself a Nikon.
I was never into Leicas and that
whole tradition. Everybody had to
have a Leica because [Henri] Cartier-
Bresson used one. I like the single-
lens reflex. But I was never a camera
devotee. I didn’t have a hang-up on a
camera any more than Proust would
have had one on a typewriter, if he had
used one. To me, the camera should
be invisible. It shouldn't be something
that gets between you and what you’re
trying to photograph.
It’s not about the type of paint-
brush you use...
Exactly. But in photography, there was a
mystique about equipment.
I remember a program on Ansel
Adams where they showed you the car
he stood on top of with his tripod, as if
somehow these ingredients were essen-
tial to what he did. They were impor-
tant, but what was essential was his
vision, the way he saw things.He had that station wagon with a
platform on it for photography.
Fine, that’s nice. OK, but get on with
it. Why did he take those pictures?
The “why” of why I took those pic-
tures was simply an exercise because I
was so knocked out by Atget. Before
Atget, there was Charles Marvilleworking in the same style. Atget actu-
ally described himself as doing photos
for artists. He wasn’t clinical.You discovered photography on
the trip to the Soviet Union. It
was a pretty unusual place to go
back then.
I just had this idea of having adventures,
although I came from a steelworker
family in a suburb of Pittsburgh.
When I was 14, I went to Texas
after reading an article about wheat
crops in the McKeesport Daily News.
It whetted my appetite.
Then, I got a scholarship to go to
school in Colorado at 17, and that was a
huge adventure. I went into the ROTC
in college. This was 1949. Then, the
Korean War broke out in 1950. I gradu-
ated from school in 1953 and went into
the Army from 1953-1955. When I was
21, I got a commission as a second lieu-
tenant. They sent me to an armor unit.Looking at all these places,
they began to look like stage
sets.... I saw these places not
just as a space but as a space
where something occurred.