Scroll down below to explore the latest posts from our daily collecting guide, Peter's quotes, notes and reflections from forty years of collecting and dealing in photography. Started during lockdown and continued by popular demand for over three years now, daily posts are sent by email to our mailing list subscribers, with live works for sale and related works to explore, as well as advance previews of exhibitions and events.
Access the previous 800 posts in our archive pages starting in March 2020 here
Use the #tags below right to search by category and subject. If there is a particular subject, era, style or artist of interest, please contact our concierge service for a tailor-made private view.
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#1458 - Robert Doisneau
Cour Carrée du Louvre, 1969“So you arrive in a place that seems good, where things are composed harmoniously in the space. Then you wait. Waiting with irrational crazy hope. Then people come into the frame and “click” you take the picture"
~ Robert Doisneau
(1912-1994)ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK
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#1451 - Sabine Weiss
Restaurant Coquet, Paris, 1953 (Printed Later)“I have never been drawn by one thing in particular other than finishing what I started. That’s always been an obsession of mine. I was also determined to be successful in all the assignments I undertook. When I worked on advertising shoots, I chose the sets myself and really took things seriously. In my personal work, my commitment lays in the interest I had in seeing everything around me, in documenting it all and in letting myself be surprised by people, by what was going on in the street and all around me"
~ Sabine Weiss
(1924-2021)ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK
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#1394 - Louis Stettner
Train Platform, Solitary Woman, Penn Station, 1958 -
#1393 - William Klein
Gun 1, New York, 1955 -
#1389 - Don Hunstein | Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan & Suze, New York, 1960 -
#1384 - Henri Cartier-Bresson
Rue Mouffetard, 1954“It is through living that we discover ourselves, at the same time as we discover the world around us”
~ Henri Cartier-Bresson
(1908 - 2004)ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK
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“Memories, that’s the thing about photography.. I look at the contact sheet and it brings back everything.. Whether I was tired, whether I was full of beans”
~ William Klein
(1928-2022)ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK
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#1369 - Louis Stettner
Jardin des Tuileries, 1997/Printed Later“New York is a city I loved, a city that forgives nothing but accepts everyone - a place of a thousand moods and vistas, of countless faces in a moving crowd, each one silently talking to you”
~ Louis Stettner
(1922-2016)ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK
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#1360 - Wolfgang Suschitzky
Charing Cross Road from No. 84, (Marks & Co.), 1936“There was no such thing as a photography galleries in the 1930’s. Photography was not considered collectable works of art in those days”
~ Wolfgang Suschitzky
(1912-2016)“It is difficult to speak adequately or justly of London. It is not a pleasant place, it is not agreeable or cheerful or easy or exempt from reproach. It is only magnificent"
~ Oscar Wilde
ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK
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#1347 - Danny Lyon
Crossing the Ohio near Louisville, 1966“The pictures do not ask you to help these people but something more difficult.. to be briefly, intricately aware of their existence, an existence as real and significant as your own”
~ Danny Lyon -
#1337 - William Klein
Staten Island Ferry, New York, 1955“The kinetic quality of New York, the kids, the dirt, the madness - I tried to find a photographic style that would come close to it. So I cropped, blurred, played with the negatives”
~ William Klein -
#1336 - André Kertész
Les Midinettes, Paris, 1926“Seeing is not enough. You have to feel what you photograph”
~ Andre Kertész -
#1328 - Henri Cartier-Bresson
Behind the Gare St. Lazare, Paris, 1932“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 -
#1326 - Lee Friedlander
New York City (Shadow), 1966“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 -
#1321 - Gifts for Dad - William Heick
Hats, Father's Day Picnic, 1948“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 -
#1316 - William Klein
Selwyn Theatre, 42nd Street, New York, 1955“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
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#1281 - Burt Glinn
Andy Warhol with Edie Sedgwick and Chuck Wein, New York, 1965"I think that what you've got to do is discover the essential truth of the situation, and have a point of view about it."
~ Burt Glinn -
#1275 - Mario Algaze
"Encuentro" Cuzco, Perú, 2002“The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life.”
~ William FaulknerENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK
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#1273 - Wolfgang Suschitzky
Embankment, London, 1947“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 SuschitzkyENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK
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#1264 - Henri Cartier-Bresson
Rue Mouffetard, 1954“It is through living that we discover ourselves, at the same time as we discover the world around us”
~ Henri Cartier-Bresson
(1908 - 2004) -
#1208 - Louis Stettner
Six Lights, Penn Station, 1958/Printed Later"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
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#1198 - Levitt
Children with Broken Mirror, New York, 1940“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)
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#1195 - Louis Stettner
"Crossing the Seine" Mother and Child, Paris, 1950“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
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#1190 - Henri Cartier-Bresson
Valencia Spain, 1933 (Printed 1970's)“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
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#1188 - Wolfgang Suschitzky
Amsterdam, Prisengracht, 1934“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
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#1171 - Alfred Eisenstaedt
Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree, NYC, 1950 (printed 1993)“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
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#1169 - Josef Sudek
The Window of My Studio, C. 1940-1950“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
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#1159 - John Bulmer
“Roller Girls” 1964“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
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#1158 - Josef Koudelka
Warsaw Pact, Tanks Invade Prague, 1968“To be born in a country which is not free means that you appreciate freedom. You don’t think of it as something automatic, and you don’t want anyone to take it from you”
~ Josef Koudelka
ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK
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#1156 - Fred Zinnemann
New York, 1932"I like people to be entertained, but I don't want it to be empty. I like to give some nourishment."
~ Fred Zinnemann
(1907-1997)ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK
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#1154 - Fred Lyon
Castle Street, Coit Tower, 1947"I see pictures I would like to take, I need another lifetime to photograph San Francisco. But my life has been so much fun I can't believe it. I keep thinking I'm being softened up for something really grim. And it hasn't happened yet."
~ Fred Lyon
(1924 - 2022)ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK
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#1146 - Ormond Gigli
Models in the Windows, New York City, 1960, printed later"The photograph came off as planned. What had seemed to some as too dangerous or difficult to accomplish, became my fantasy fulfilled, and my most memorable self–assigned photograph."
~ Ormond Gigli
(1925 - 2019)ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK
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#1129 - Melvin Sokolsky
Saint Germain Street, Paris, 1963, printed later"The key point is not the technique of how the image was made, but the idea and the vision."
~ Melvin Sokolsky
(1933 - 2022)ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK
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#1127 - Jacques Lowe
Playground, Glasgow, Scotland, 1954"...Jacques Lowe was monumentally self-effacing. This, I believe, is why his camera caught so much human truth. There are no orchestrated 'photo-opportunities here..."
~ Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.
American Historian and Social Critic
(1917 - 2007) -
#1117 - Josef Sudek
Trolley, Ujerd, 1958“Everything around us, dead or alive, in the eyes of a crazy photographer mysteriously takes on many variations, so that a seemingly dead object comes to life through light or by its surroundings....to capture some of this - I suppose that’s lyricism.”
~ Josef Sudek
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#1104 - Bruce Davidson
Untitled, (Stickball Scene, Brooklyn Gang, NY), 1959 / Printed Later"I don’t always know why I’m photographing something. It’s my learning machine."
~ Bruce Davidson
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#1016 - Kristoffer Albrecht
Cyclists from Above, Beijing, 1989"Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving."
~ Albert Einstein
(1879-1955) -
#1012 - Manuel Alvarez Bravo
Los Obstáculos/The Obstacles, Mexico, 1929"I think that light and shadow have exactly the same duality that exists between life and death."
~ Manuel Alvarez Bravo
(1902-2002) -
#994 - Thurston Hopkins
On the Isle de la Cité, Paris, 1952"I take the rather unpopular view - among photographers - that words and pictures need one another."
~ Thurston Hopkins
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#988 - Janine Niépce
L' Elegante et les Colonnes Morris, Paris, 1950/Printed Later“In winter, the elegant ladies wore fur coats that were fitted and cut in such a unique manner, that one could immediately recognize each designer's signature. In the summer, printed dresses made of Lyon silk, combined in rare color harmonies, impeccably made-up faces, protected by flowery capelines illuminated the grey-blue city after sunset. Fragrance trails accompanied these beautiful passers-by. Chanel's N°5 or Guerlain's Chant d'Arômes. To decipher and to recognize them was a magical feeling. The proportions, the balance, the refinement, the purity of the lines of the French creations embodied a rare harmony.”
~ Janine Niépce
(1921 – 2007) -
#985 - Gianni Berengo Gardin
Break During Workday, Milan, 1987 (Printed 2023)“I am a photographer. I’m not an artist. I’m just a witness of what I see.”
~ Gianni Berengo Gardin -
#979 - Shirley Baker
Manchester, 1968“I did know that fundamental changes were taking place… and nobody seemed to be interested in recording the faces of the people or anything in their lives"
~ Shirley Baker
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#977 - New Exhibition: The Flower Show | Robert Doisneau
Voiture de Quatre-Saisons: Les Fleurs de la Place du Marche Saint-Honore“I’m quite happy with my pictures. I’ve been co-habitant with them for years now and we know each other inside out. So I feel I’m entitled to say that pictures have a life and a character of their own. Maybe they’re like plants, they won’t really flourish unless you talk to them"
~ Robert Doisneau
(1912-1994) -
#969 - André Kertész
Stairs at Montmartre, Paris, 1926“The moment always dictates in my work. Everybody can look, but they don’t necessarily see. I see a situation and I know that it’s right”
~ André Kertész
(1894-1985) -
#968 - William Helburn
Dovima under the El, 1956"It’s up to us, as mothers and mother-figures, to give the girls in our lives the kind of support that keeps their flame lit and lifts up their voices — not necessarily with our own words, but by letting them find the words themselves.”
~ Michelle Obama
(Former First Lady of the United States) -
#967 - André Kertész
Puddle, Empire State Building 1967“I photographed real life - not the way it was, but the way I felt it. That is the most important thing, not analyzing but feeling”
~ André Kertész
(1894-1985) -
#966 - Elliott Erwitt
Paris, 1957“Be sure to take the lens cap off before photographing”
~ Elliott Erwitt -
#965 - Steve McCurry
Men Playing Chess, India, 1996 (Printed 2020)"I’m interested primarily in people, and human behavior – how people relate to each other and their environment."
~ Steve McCurry
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#961 - Henri Cartier-Bresson
Ile de la Cite, Paris, 1952, printed later“A photograph is neither taken or seized by force. It offers itself up. It is the photo that takes you. One must not take photos”
~ Henri Cartier-Bresson -
#960 - Bert Hardy
Millions Like Her, Betty Burden, A Shop Girl, Birmingham, 1951/Printed Later“The ideal picture tells something of the essence of life. It sums up emotion, it holds the feeling of movement thereby implying the continuity of life. It shows some aspect of humanity, the way that the person who looks at the picture will at once recognize as startlingly true”
~ Bert Hardy
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#949 - London Events
Photo London & The Eye of the Collector“There’s nowhere else like London. Nothing at all, anywhere.”
~ Dame Vivienne Westwood
(1941–2022) -
#944 - Max Yavno
Powell Street, San Francisco, 1947/ Printed Later“But oh, San Francisco! It is and has everything. The wonderful sunlight there, the hills, the great bridges, the Pacific at your shoes. Beautiful Chinatown .. Every race in the world. The sardine fleets sailing out. The little cable cars whizzing down the city hills”
~ Dylan Thomas
(Poet, Writer)
1914 - 1953 -
#941 - Lee Friedlander
New York City (Shadow), 1966“The world makes up my pictures not me"
~ Lee Friedlander“In the past decade a new generation of photographers has directed the documentary approach towards more personal ends. Their aim has been not to reform life, but to know it. Their work betrays a sympathy - a trust, an affection - for the imperfections and frailties of society. They like the real world in spite of it’s terrors as the source of all wonder and fascination and value-no less precious for being irrational ."
~ John Szarkowski -
#938 - Joel Bernstein
Neil Young passing an old woman NYC, 1970“I saw the small old woman coming towards us down the sidewalk. I was intrigued and wanted to catch her passing Neil. The mistake to me was that I had in my haste focused the lens just past the two figures closer to the fence than to Neil’s face.That was the original reason why I made a small sized print and solarized it to help with the apparent sharpness.. But the solarization in this case added a somewhat spooky dimension to the image, which Neil took to immediately”
~ Joel Bernstein“When you’re young, you don’t have any experience-you are charged up but you’re out of control. And if you’re old and you’re not charged up, then all you have are memories. But if you’re charged and stimulated by what’s going on around you and you also have experience, you know what to appreciate and what to pass by”
~ Neil Young -
#931 - Pentti Sammallahti
Fabiansgatan, 2001“You don’t take a photo, the photo gives itself to you”
~ Pentti Sammallahti
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#927 - Jay Maisel
Thanksgiving Day Parade, balloons, man with eye patch, New York, Mid 1950's“Always carry a camera, it's tough to shoot a picture without one”
~ Jay Maisel -
#916 - Harry Callahan
Wabash Avenue, Chicago, 1958“Photography is an adventure just as life is an adventure. If a man or a woman wishes to express themselves photographically, they must understand surely to a certain extent, their relationship to life. I am interested in relating the problems that affect me to some set of values that I am trying to discover and establish as being my life. I want to discover them through photography”
~ Harry Callahan
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#920 - Eve Arnold
Gala opening, Metropolitan opera, New York, 1950- printed later“If a photographer cares about the people before the lens and is compassionate, much is given. It is the photographer, not the camera, that is the instrument.”
~ Eve Arnold
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#917 - Edouard Boubat
Paris, 1948“The eternal is a moment that breathes and contains life, the span of one breath”
~ Edouard Boubat -
#901 - Louis Stettner
The Family ("Manege") 14th Arrondissement, Paris, c. 1950-51“I always felt the difference between New York and Paris is that Paris nourishes you by the fact that it is very beautiful.You see living history all around you. The whole flavor of the place is one of harmony and beauty. It raises the human spirit"
~ Louis Stettner
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#899 - Robert Doisneau
Le Baiser Blotto, 1950/Printed Later“There are days when the technique of an aimless stroll or destination works like a charm, flushing out pictures from the non stop urban spectacle"
~ Robert Doisneau
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#894 - Louis Stettner
Soldier on Leave, 1951“New York is a city I love, a city that forgives nothing but accepts everyone - a place of a thousand varied moods and visions, of countless faces in a moving crowd, each one silently talking to you”
~ Louis Stettner
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#893 - Louis Stettner
Concentric Circles, NYC, 1957“Brassai showed me that it was possible to find something significant in photographing subjects in everyday life doing ordinary things by interpreting them in your own way and with your own personal vision"
~ Louis Stettner
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#891 - Elliott Erwitt
Paris, Arc de Triomphe, 1956“In life’s saddest winter moments, when you’ve been under a cloud for weeks, suddenly a glimpse of something wonderful can change the whole complexion of things, your entire feeling.The kind of photography I like to do, capturing the moment, it is very much like that break in the clouds. In a flash, a wonderful picture seems to come out of nowhere”
~ Elliott Erwitt
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#877 - Ernesto Esquer
Empire State Building (Night), New York, 2018“There is something in the New York air that makes sleep useless.”
~ Simone de Beauvoir -
#876 - Edouard Boubat
Le Pont de Brooklyn, New York, 1982/Printed Later“We are all living letters. All our troubles, our problems and our joys are written inside us. We are living photographs. Photography reveals the images hidden within us”
~ Edouard Boubat
(1923 - 1999) -
#872 - Henri Cartier-Bresson
Hyères, France, 1932/Printed later“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
1908-2004 -
#850 - Wolfgang Suschitzky
Charing Cross Road from No. 84, (Marks & Co.), 1936I've never "arranged" my photographs, I've always been an observer."
~ Wolfgang Suschitzky
(1912-2016) -
#846 - Robert Doisneau
La Derniere Valse Du 14 Juillet, 1949"People like my photos because they see in them what they would see if they stopped rushing about and took the time to enjoy the city."
~ Robert Doisneau -
#825 - Bruce Davidson
The Widow of Montmartre 1956“Across the narrow Rue Lepic from the Moulin de La Galette, up eight flights of stairs under the thin roof of a Montmartre studio garret lived an old widow. She was the wife of Leon Fauche, an impressionist painter who was a close friend of Gauguin, Toulouse-Lautrec and Renoir. Her husband died leaving her with a small military pension and 60 paintings. Montmartre changed but the widow stayed on. Each day she would go down to the streets crowded with tourists seeking the past and buy flowers to place under her husband’s self portrait. Then at twilight, as the weakening evening rays made a shadowy symbol of a long dead Paris through her studio window of the Moulin de la Galette, she was absorbed into darkness with her memories”
~ Esquire Magazine, October 1958
“All my photographs are portraits, self portraits because you can’t photograph someone without reflecting/echoing, like a bat sending out a signal that comes back to you. You get not only a picture of who you are photographing but you get a picture of yourself at the same time”
~ Bruce Davidson
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#823 - André Kertész
Pont Marie at Night, Paris, 1963“Everybody can look but they don’t necessarily see”
~ André Kertész (1894-1985)
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#819 - Louis Stettner
Windshield, Saratoga Springs, New York, 1957 (Printed 1981)“My way of life, my very being is based on images capable of engraving themselves indelibly in our inner soul’s eye.”
~ Louis Stettner (1922 -2016) -
#812 - Daido Moriyama
Tomei Expressway, 1969"For me photographs are taken in the eye before you've even thought what they mean. That's the reality I'm interested in capturing"
~ Daido Moriyama -
#811 - René Groebli
Various #307, 1946"He is a magician with the camera, the camera being his magic eye."
~David Blochwitz