My mother had taken me to photographer Paul Hesse, who used some of my pictures on magazine covers.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I began photographing in 1946. Before that, I was a painter and drawer, with my mother and father's support. They were a bit pissed when I went into photography. They thought photographers were guys who took pictures at weddings.
I took individual photographs of Annie Liebovitz, I kept taking her picture.
My dad had been an ardent amateur photographer, and he taught me to compose a photograph from the back to the front, and then populate the picture.
When I was young, I did actually model and was much photographed by famous photographers. But I was always a bookworm.
Well, in brief, I was discovered by a lady called Beth Boldt. She had also been a model. She used to take pictures of the girls she found, and she took a picture of me one day in my school uniform, and it all kind of started from there.
Photography belongs to a fraternity of its own. I was young and enthusiastic and wanted to take good pictures to show the other photographers. That, and the professional pride of convincing an editor that I was the man to go somewhere, were the most important things to me.
I wanted to make pictures where you would not know who took them. I also bring the present into the past.
I came to photography by accident.
My mother took my picture to a model agency and the rest is history.
My father did advertising photography.