“Dress shabbily and they remember the dress. Dress impeccably and they remember the woman.”

~ Coco Chanel

 

“For years Madame Chanel had firmly refused to allow her dresses to be photographed, let alone herself, for Vogue. But one day in 1937 to the frank astonishment of Vogue’s Paris office, she sent word that she would consent to be photographed - on one condition, that I should be the photographer”

~ Horst P. Horst

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

“Seeing is not enough. You have to feel what you photograph”

~ Andre Kertész

“It is a wise father that knows his own child.”

~ William Shakespeare

We were traveling along the Redwood Highway trying to find a place to have a picnic. The road was so littered with cans and rubbish that we rode for miles and couldn’t find a place. Finally, we just went off and had our lunch amid the litter. When it was over, I wandered off the highway about 150 feet and saw this incredible scene. It was an ancient virginal forest. Barbara [my daughter] was with us. She was a young virginal child. I knew the qualities of her body would both contrast and harmonize beautifully with the qualities of the dead logs and living plants of the forest. The cyclic character of natural forces would be clearly evident.The light was just right, everything was spatially balanced; the relationships between events – the young child, the new forest covering, the prehistoric trees, the rotting logs – were strong and exciting. Everything went together perfectly. I didn’t have to analyze anything. I just recognized what was in front of me. All I had to do was set up and take the picture.

~ Wynn Bullock

"And so from that time, I was bitten, and investigated and read and collected... and bought a lot."

 

~ Sir Elton John
(On his love of photography)

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

“I photograph out of love to record beautiful forms. It’s a way of life, a compulsion. There is nothing I would rather do.”

 

~ Brett Weston

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

"When gifts are given to me through my camera, I accept them graciously”

 

~ Minor White
(1908-1976)

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

“Photography is not documentation but intuition, a poetic experience. It’s drowning yourself, dissolving yourself, then sniff, sniff, sniff- being sensitive to coincidence. You can’t go looking for it: you can’t want it or you won’t get it. First you must lose yourself. Then it happens.

~ Henri Cartier-Bresson

“As fathers, we need to be involved in our children’s lives not just when it’s convenient or easy, and not just when they’re doing well — but when it's difficult and thankless, and they’re struggling. That is when they need us most.”

~Barack Obama

In the still picture, a deeply paradoxical truth exists. Objects can be frozen in time in terms of their specific physical, external qualities, but the mind can respond to these same objects as events in time. This involves, of course, the skill of the photographer in expressing symbolically three dimensional objects and four dimensional time, and the awareness of the viewer that permits him to recognize and respond to the symbols that create the illusion.

~ Wynn Bullock

This photograph was taken during the same family road trip that produced "Child in Forest". The day was cool and misty and we had the beach all to ourselves. Mom and I were hunting for driftwood and shells while Dad was lugging his 8x10 view camera around just in case…. Although what he found wasn’t something we could cart home with us to put in the garden, he did win the prize for the most spectacular find of the day!

~ Barbara Bullock-Wilson

“You don't have to go looking for pictures. The material is generous. You go out and the pictures are staring at you”

~ Lee Friedlander

"If there's one theme that connects all my work, I think it's that of landlessness; how land makes people into who they are and what happens to them when they lose it and thus lose their identities"

 

~ Larry Towell

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

"I believe in the dignity of labor, whether with head or hand; that the world owes no man a living but that it owes every man an opportunity to make a living."

 

~ John D Rockefeller

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

“She did not stand alone, but what stood behind her, the most potent moral force in her life, was the love of her father.”

~ Harper Lee

“I work for the pleasure of the work and everything else is a matter for the critics. I think that light and shadow have exactly the same duality that exists between life and death. When one takes a photograph one doesn’t think about saying anything in particular”

 

~ Manuel Alvarez Bravo
(1902-2002)

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

“Looking back upon those early years in Paris I realize that not only was the city a great inspiration but also that the Parisians gave me the reassurance that I was doing something important. There was an innate respect for artists - for what we were doing and for having the courage to take the hard road. Yet it was a joyous route, such magnificent sights and human splendor along the way that difficulties magically effaced themselves. One regretted nothing and would have it no other way”

 

~ Louis Stettner
(1922-2016)

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

“Sometimes, I’d take shots without aiming, just to see what happened. I’d rush into crowds. It must be close to what a fighter feels after jabbing and circling and getting hit when suddenly there’s an opening and Bang! Bang! Right on the button. It’s fantastic feeling”

 

~ William Klein

“My artistic quest is also a search for the characters in my dreams"

 

~ Flor Garduño

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

“Photographing women is like capturing poetry in motion. Their beauty unfolds like verses and each frame reveals a new stanza of their story”

 

~ Lillian Bassman
(1917 - 2012)

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

“Something catches your eye or your interest. You attack it in one way or observe it in some way and try and put it in some kind of form and take a picture. It’s as simple as that”

 

~ Elliott Erwitt
(1928 - 2023)

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

“I’m known for fashion photography but in America, kids would go to college and get out and buy a second hand car and go across the country and discover America. I never did that. I went from New York to Paris and New York was my America”

 

~ William Klein
(1928-2022)

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

“In all the world, there is no heart for me like yours. In all the world, there is no love for you like mine.”

 

~ Maya Angelou

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

“Photographs must be taken without an exchange of glances between the photographer and the subject. Without giving, without returning anything. I just shoot”

 

~ Marc Riboud
(1923-2016)

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

“For me personal experiences are the initial impulses to create. When presenting the work after period of contemplation, I hope these feelings and emotions become more abstract and universal. In the end it is not about us, but a deeper, universal emotion and connection”

 

~ Paul Cupido

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

“There are different ways of seeing. I have mine. For me to photograph a beautiful face, a misty landscape is somehow like listening to music or reading poetry. It helps me to live”

 

~ Marc Riboud
(1923-2016)

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

“I was terrified, I didn’t think I even knew who he was. But the light was good”

~ Jane Bown
(1925-2014)

 

“War doesn’t determine who is right - only who is left”

~ Bertrand Russell

“In my artistic process I have tried to create images that invite the observer to examine by means of what I call “emotional contemplation” assigning through the beauty in them the meaning of their shape”

 

~ Luis González Palma

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

“A good photograph becomes something more than just a good photograph. It has meaning and value that extends beyond the medium itself. Something spiritual that reveals something about life”

 

~ William Klein
(1928-2022)

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

“A good photograph becomes something more than just a good photograph. It has meaning and value that extends beyond the medium itself. Something spiritual that reveals something about life”

 

~ Louis Stettner
(1922-2016)

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

"I believe that the greatest creativity stems from the childlike nature that one has retained"

~ Sarah Moon

“In my city we like to think of ourselves as risk-taking, edge-of-the continent explorers, rakish and louche. For example, we go from sleazy to elegance and find that logical. San Francisco is a city noted for its liberal attitude where anything goes. I just love this place.”

 

~ Fred Lyon
(1924-2022)

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

“Solitary wanderings, eyes always peeled. As evening approaches, I wonder what meaning could be given to those encounters. Doubt often hovers nearby, but I photograph the way a musician hums. Looking is like breathing. So when luck offers me a good picture, joy is surely not far away”

 

~ Marc Riboud
(1923-2016)

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

Due to popular demand Jeffrey Conley's exhibition, An Ode to Nature and Steve McCurry's The Endless Traveler have been extended until Saturday May 4th, 2024. Don't miss this opportunity to experience two amazing shows at our Santa Monica gallery. We look forward to your visit.

"Everything I've photographed exists regardless of me, my role is only to be receptive. The most important thing is the luck, behind every good image there is the good luck too”~ Pentti Sammallahti

We are excited to return to New York next week for AIPAD 2024, at one of our favorite venues - the Park Avenue Armory. 

Is there a photograph that catches your fancy on our website that you would like to see in person? We are happy to arrange special VIP appointments at the fair. To discuss further and schedule a viewing, please contact peter@peterfetterman.com

Explore our online preview for featured works by Henri Cartier Bresson, Jeffrey Conley, Sarah Moon, Anastasia Samoylova, and George Tice.

BOOTH PREVIEW

“Earth laughs in flowers.”

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The League taught me that no matter how original and talented the photographers vision might berth, ultimate success of the photograph was mutually dependent on the photographer and the world of reality around him or her. Not to ignore, but on the contrary to concentrate his or her talents on everyday working people and what was immediately around them in terms of living and environment”

 

~ Louis Stettner
(1922-2016)

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

“I soon saw how the music came naturally. It wasn’t like they’d built in time to compose - they had to do it on the fly. There was a piano in Paul’s room. At one point John pulled up a chair and started tinkering. Paul joined in. John started humming what I would later recognize as the tune to,“Baby’s good to me you know / She’s happy as can be you know / She said so…..” But they got stuck. Where should it go after the melody?

 

George wandered over with his guitar and played a catchy rhythm - and -blues riff, plucking away. He seemed to be improvising, although John was later credited with writing the riff-influenced by Bobby Parker’s song “Watch Your Step” - the way I heard it that day it was George coming up with it. They appeared to be writing a song right in front of me. And as John and Paul kept at it on the piano, Ringo, in a black turtle-neck came over and stood next to George, and I had my shot: The Beatles composing “I Feel Fine”.

 

~ Harry Benson

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

“I have a strong attraction to the American South. People there have a marvelous exterior - wonderful manners, warm friendliness until you touch on things you’re not supposed to touch on. Then you see the hardness beneath the mask of nice manners”

~ Elliott Erwitt
(1928 - 2023)

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

“To walk alone in London is the greatest rest”

~ Virginia Woolf

 

“I’m not aware that I have a specific style. I just take pictures as I come across them”

~ Wolfgang Suschitzky

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

"In our life there is a single color, as on an artist’s palette, which provides the meaning of life and art. It is the color of love."

 

~ Marc Chagall

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

“What the human eye observes casually and incuriously, the eye of the camera notes with relentless fidelity."

~ Berenice Abbott

 

"If you could say it in words there would be no reason to paint. Great art is the outward expression of an inner life in the artist and this inner life would result in his or her personal vision of the world. No amount of skillful invention can replace the essential element of imagination”

 

~ Edward Hopper

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

"For me the camera is a sketchbook, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity, the master of the instant which in visual terms, questions and decides simultaneously. In order to give a meaning to the world, one has to feel involved in what one frames through the viewfinder. This attitude requires concentration, discipline of mind, sensitivity and a sense of geometry. It is by economy of means that one arrives at simplicity of expression"

 

~ Henri Cartier-Bresson
(1908-2004)

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

"My photographs are acts of eloquent homage and deep remorse about the city. I am profoundly moved by it’s lyric beauty and horrified by it’s cruelty and suffering"

~ Louis Stettner
(1922-2016)

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

“I said to her, "Do something with the spirit of the studio corner" and she started to move on the sofa. She just made a movement. I took only two photographs. No need to shoot a hundred rolls like people do today. People in motion are wonderful to photograph. It means catching the right moment - the moment when something when something changes into something else”

~ Andre Kertész

 

“Whatever we have done, Kertesz did first. We all owe something to Kertesz”

 

~ Henri Cartier Bresson

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

“Staff photographers, freelancers and everyone who owned a camera, were all hoping to get published in LIFE Magazine. It was like getting one week of fame instead of the 15 minutes Andy Warhol talked about”

 

~ Allan Grant 

(1909-2008)

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

“If “The Wild One” were filmed today Marlon Brando and the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club would all have to wear helmets. I used to be afraid that when Hells Angels became movie stars and Cal the hero of the book, the bike riders would perish on the coffee tables of America. But now I think that this attention doesn’t have the strength of reality of the people it aspires to know and that as long as Harley Davidsons are manufactured other bike riders will appear riding unknown and beautiful through Chicago into the streets of Cicero”

 

~ Danny Lyon

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

“If you ask me what feelings the Eiffel Tower evokes for me, I’d have to say that indeed it’s a matter of sentiments. Those one feels for an old friend one is always glad to see again. A friend who was responsible for my first publication in LIFE in 1953. In the course of a long voyage full of more wear and rather less reason, laying eyes on this great lady again, you’re sure that at last you are home again. She is always there, quite erect, a bit arrogant as she looks down on us from so far above. More than ever she is courted by an increasing number of lovers who climb to conquer her. Her image marked our childhood and coming home from the country on a Sunday evening everyone of my children played the same game at the same age of around 3 or 4 of seeing who would be the first to see the familiar tower in the Paris sky.”

 

~ Marc Riboud. 1923-2016

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

"For me color is not the most important part of the picture. For me it is the story. It’s the emotional content in the picture"

 

~ Steve McCurry

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

“The most valuable things in a life are a man’s memories. And they are priceless”

 

~ Andre Kertész

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

“You see, when models work with men, they strike up a pose and so on…..With me they were always totally relaxed, I was just a woman photographing another woman. And who was very relaxed as well.”

 

~ Lillian Bassman

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

"Photographing Lenny was always an event. There was always a buzz in the air, an excitement, an anticipation. When Lenny was in the house, something was going to happen. We didn’t know what, but we were on the edges of our chairs waiting to find out. I say we, as if I were one of the musicians. But I was also on stage (or hovering close by), and I found myself equally compelled to rise above my limits, and break through my upper expectations... And that was good. I was never able to let my guard down for a second – my concentration had to be complete if I wanted to follow where he was going – his energy could burst forth suddenly, his body leaping high off the podium, his arms flying in the air, eyes blazing, mouth agape… and then receding just as quickly, and barely moving, conducting with only his shoulders or eyebrows, eyes closed, deep inside the soul of the conductor…. Whatever it was, it was total immersion in the music, and the results are legendary. That night in March 1990, there was no way to know that Leonard Bernstein was struggling or that these would be the last photographs I would ever take of The Maestro. These performances were vintage Bernstein; he was as powerful and vital as ever, and it was thrilling. Yet, some point during the concert, it began to dawn on me that something was off, something was wrong. Not that it showed to the audience, but I was seeing something in him I had never before seen. His usual joy and light had somehow dimmed, and he had a gentle but profound sadness in his eyes, a deeper melancholy than I had ever before seen……Lenny died 7 and a half months later. Years after, as I was looking through these photos, I could not deny what I was seeing, so I emailed his daughter Jamie and asked if he knew at that time that he was dying. She emailed back: “I don’t know the answer to the question. But he knew ‘something wasn't right’ as far back as that January. I think maybe he had a feeling...”

 

~ Steve J. Sherman

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

“I never had a “project”. I would go out and shoot, follow my eyes-- what they noticed. I tried to capture with my camera for others to see”

 

~ Helen Levitt (1913-2009)

“Most important was the outdoor studio that was Paris. I would take long daily walks with my camera, leaving myself open to what ever happened around me. Sometimes I am asked why I did it. There was no economic basis and the possibility of recognition was slight. I suppose I was drawn by a great need and love to get close to the world around me. Each photograph was a way of reaching out and an act of discovery”

 

~ Louis Stettner (1922-2006)

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

"We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."

 

~ Martin Luther King Jr.
Washington National Cathedral, March 31, 1968

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

“This photograph of sand, sea and sky was made one early, cloudy morning on a beach in Calais, France. The exposure was probably about twenty minutes, judging by the movement of water and clouds. Over the years, my vision has been influenced by countless other photographers and I have often viewed my subject matter from the privileged shoulders of giants. I have long admired Hiroshi Sugimoto’s time exposure photographs of seafronts and theater screens. Even while making this image, I knew that it was heavily inspired by Sugimoto’s work. In Japanese, “Arigato" means “Thank you”, and “San" is an honorific word used after somebody’s name as a token of respect and esteem. Hence, Thank you Mr. Sugimoto!”

 

~ Michael Kenna 

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

“I believe that, through the act of living, the discovery of oneself is made concurrently with the discovery of the world around us”

 

~ Henri Cartier-Bresson
(1908-2004)

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

“Photography is a combination of the right choice of detail, the elimination of all that is inessential and the right moment that makes the picture”

 

~ Wolfgang Suschitzky

(1912-2016)

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

“When you take a photograph, you are selecting an instant of life. It is like a personal discovery that I want to show everybody else, not as an achievement of mine but as something I want to share because I feel it is important”

 

~ Mariana Yampolsky

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

“Photography is nothing. It’s life that interests me"

 

~ Henri Cartier-Bresson

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

“The Culture in which one lives, especially during childhood affects the entire way one perceives what we call reality. Our perception and our being in the world are bound up with the way we lived when we were children. No one leaves childhood unharmed. It is something we must deal with for the rest of our lives. And I think art is indeed a way of doing so. It allows us to revisit and re-interpret the pain and trauma of the past. In my case having lived in a country ravaged by more than 30 years of armed conflict this approach is particularly meaningful. The subjects of fear, loneliness, emptiness and absence are deeply embedded in my work”

 

~ Luis Gonzalez Palma

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

“I do not use the word “genius” lightly but if David Bowie is not a genius, then there is no such thing”

 

~ Mick Rock

 

“As an adolescent, I was painfully shy, withdrawn. I didn’t really have the nerve to sing my songs on stage and nobody else was doing them. I decided to do them in disguise so that I didn’t have to actually go through the humiliation of going on stage and being myself”

 

~ David Bowie

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

“Photography is much more than just taking pictures – it is a way of life. What you feel, what you want to express, is your ideology and your ethics. It’s a language that allows you to travel over the wave of history.”

 

~ Sebastião Salgado

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

“I did not want to be somebody who lived off his reputation. I wanted to continue to be part of the modern music scene”

~ Mick Rock

 

“Music should come crashing out of your speakers and grab you and the lyrics should challenge whatever preconceived notions the listener has"

~ Lou Reed
(1942-2013)

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

"A good picture knows how to communicate the emotion that created it."

 

~ Willy Ronis
( 1910 - 2009 )

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

"Photography is a unique visual language that cannot be expressed in words. As a matter of fact, if it can be expressed in words, then it probably isn’t worth photographing."

 

~ Charles Harbutt

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

“At first, I looked questionably at the field weeds and stems stuck into a vase, but on further scanning of the back ground, I became enamored of the pane of glass dappled with raindrops and misty patches of light. I was taken with how beautifully dark and light were splashed throughout the image and how easily the stems and dry flowers graced the vase. Taken as a whole, this photo meets the eye as an overall texture rather than as neatly grouped elements with a frame. Were it not for some of the parts showing how crisply they can be delineated by the camera lens, I would describe this photograph as being gently impressionistic."

 

~ Paul Caponigro

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

"San Francisco is still a magical city. If I were a little tougher, I'd put aside that sentimental romanticism. But the city is the people, and that's what persists. Maybe it's a sickness we all have, but we keep attempting to recreate a lot of what attracted us here in the first place."

 

~ Fred Lyon 

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

"They were getting ready for their annual Village Fete and the lady was calling a friend to get the recipe for some tarts to bake. Her little girl had been in a phone box and found out that if you pressed Button B then sometimes money came out (Do you remember the old UK phone boxes?). The Mother therefore told the child that she had to face outwards and keep her hands off the buttons. I heard this story more than 50 years later when I showed the pictures in Pembridge Village Hall and I met the former child. This picture was on the cover of the Sunday Times issue”

 

~ John Bulmer

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

“We are only beginning to learn what to say in a photograph. The world we live in is a succession of fleeting moments, anyone of which might say something significant”

 

~ Alfred Eisenstaedt

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

"This photo was taken in Parc Monceau, which is in a fairly wealthy part of Paris. I was staying fairly close by on the Avenue de Wagram. The Deux Chevaux is the iconic car of mid-Twentieth Century France and its familiar and unique design has always stood out to me. In the photo, I am interested in this particularly well-worn 2CV juxtaposed against the classical columns of the park's rotunda. All these years later, I'm amazed by black and white photography's ability to preserve the fading light of a fall day that took place decades ago."

 

~  Mark Steinmetz

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

“I believe a lot in instinct. One should never dull it by wanting to know everything. One shouldn't ask too many questions but do what one does properly, never rush, and never torment oneself.”

 

~ Josef Sudek

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

"All I ask you to do is to listen with your eyes. The international language of jazz and photography need no special education or sophistication to be enjoyed."

 

~ William Claxton

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

“I often see the materials of photography as being a type of terrain and I construct a landscape that I need to first explore in my mind’s eye if I am to make it manifest as an artful image in silver”

~ Paul Caponigro

 

"Come away, O human child to the waters and the wild. With a faery, hand in hand, for the world's more full of weeping than you can understand."

 

~ W. B. Yeates (The Stolen Child)

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

“There’s a time for photographs that say “hello”. And there’s a time to listen”

 

~ Elliott Erwitt
(1928-2023)

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

"A photograph is a collision between a person with a camera and reality. The photograph is typically as interesting as the collision is."

 

~ Charles Harbutt

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

“If I take a picture I have to account for it. I have opened something to someone’s reality”

 

~ Bruce Davidson 

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

“I am a professional photographer by trade and an amateur photographer by vocation”

 

~ Elliott Erwitt

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

“I arrived at this location from London and had only a couple of days due to the low budget. One thing I tried to do when I arrived somewhere was to get a local map and drive to a hill or vantage point to get a sense of the place. When I got to the top I saw the view over the old pottery kilns and the man with a dog. As a newspaper photographer that I then was I always had my long lens on a camera, loaded and ready, so I was able to grab it and get this shot before he walked off"

 

~ John Bulmer

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK

“I was driving around Yorkshire and stopped by the bridge. I pretended to be photographing the buildings and switched at the last minute to catch the girls. I met one of the ladies in the picture fifty years later when the BBC did a little film about an exhibition I had in Wakefield. She rang The BBC and said “I’m the girl in the picture”. We were both invited to the studio to meet on air”

 

~ John Bulmer

ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK