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 CarrĂ©e 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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#1454 - Anastasia Samoylova
Garden, Micanopy, 2020“Landscape is nearly always present in one way or another in my work. Perhaps the key here is the triple meaning of “landscape”, a type of picture, a type of view and a type of place. The three cannot really be separated. The experience of a place is shaped in advance by our experience of images of it and of related places. It is easy to realize this but coming to terms with the profound implication of it can take a long time. It is a moving dynamic."
~ Anastasia SamoylovaENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK
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#1437 - Steve McCurry
Blue City, India, 2010 (Printed 2020)"What is important to my work is the individual picture. I photograph stories on assignment, and of course they have to be put together coherently. But what matters most is that each picture stands on its own, with its own place and feeling."
~ Steve McCurry
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#1420 - Anastasia Samoylova
White Church, Key West, 2021"The White Church in Key West drew my attention because of its perfect compact proportions and a bit of patina, while white picket fences always remind me of Paul Strand’s image. While photographing in Florida in the 1930s, young Walker Evans wrote a letter to a friend listing notable observations about the state, including ‘religion in decay.’ That list is reproduced in my book ‘Floridas,’ which includes this White Church photograph."
~ Anastasia Samoylova
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#1415 - Wishing we were in Paris...
Paris, 1988“Paris is always a good idea.”
~ Audrey Hepburn
(Sabrina)ENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK
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#1412 - Elliott Erwitt
New York City, [Empire State Building], 1955“Curiosity is everything. I don’t think you can create luck. You’re either lucky or you’re not. I don’t know if it’s really luck or if it’s just curiosity. I think the main ingredient, or a main ingredient for photography is curiosity. If you’re curious enough and if you get up in the morning and go out and take pictures, you’re likely to be more lucky than if you stay at home .”
~ Elliott Erwitt
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#1411 - Henri Cartier-Bresson
Siphnos, Greece, 1961“The joy of geometry ! When you realize everything is right"
~ Henri Cartier Bresson
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#1363 - Horst P. Horst
Park Ave Fashion, 1962“You should find these things yourself. You should never copy. I never look at other photographers’ work. You have to see it for yourself "
~ Horst P. Horst
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#1323 - D.J. Ruzicka
New York (Rockefeller Center), c. 1930s"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
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#1320 - Michael Kenna
Lotus Pond, Henjouson-in, Koyasan, 2006"As a photographer, one might, if very fortunate, be commissioned to photograph in a location that would otherwise be difficult to access. Such was the case in 2006 when Traveler Magazine kindly asked me to spend a week on Mt. Koya, (aka Koya San), the Honshu mountain top headquarters of the Shingon Buddhist sect. I stayed in a different residential temple every night, sleeping on tatami floors and dining on vegetables, roots and nuts. I photographed monks and pilgrims, inside and outside of temples, sand gardens, stone lanterns, tombstones in the ancient Okunoin graveyard, and the surrounding landscape. I experienced exquisite Buddhist rituals and services. The whole experience was thrilling and life changing.
This photograph of a Lotus Pond next to the Henjouson Temple was made one very early, pre-dawn morning. The light was soft and quiet, as if the day was just waking up from a deep sleep. The exposure was perhaps twenty minutes, so the water becomes a sort of mist, swirling around the one central point where water sprays into the air. I remember birds singing and monks chanting. Occasional figures walked by, across the bridge, but the long exposure ensured they dissolved and become invisible."~ Michael Kenna
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#1309 - William Klein
Nina, Isabella and Evelyn, New York, 1962“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
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#1275 - Mario Algaze
"Encuentro" Cuzco, PerĂº, 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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#1212 - Love is in the air!
Venice, 1959 (Printed 2020)"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
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#1205 - Danny Lyon
Crossing the Ohio near Louisville, 1966“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
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#1187 - Louis Stettner
Lower Manhattan, 2003“When I take pictures, I let reality decide what to do. I only take one when I’m deeply moved by what I see”
~ Louis Stettner (1922-2016)
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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
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#1170 - Mark Steinmetz
Deux Chevaux, Parc Monceau, Paris, 1987"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
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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
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#1164 - Michael Kenna
Empire State Building, Study 6, New York, NY, 2010"I was not prepared for the brutal cold which froze my bones and reduced me to an inexpressive drooling zombie by the end of the ride. To be fair, I was warned that it might get a bit chilly, photographing above Manhattan in the middle of winter, while strapped to the outside of an open helicopter. For the most part, I could not feel my finger tips, so was unsure when I had even made a photograph. And, there were the rolling waves of nausea, (which I would rather not elaborate on), as the helicopter banked and circled, with my eyes stuck to the back of the camera viewfinder. I relied on the statistical law of probability that if I kept photographing, at least one picture might turn out ok. I loved this one of the Empire State Building, the moment I saw it on the contact sheet. There are copious other images from different angles and points of view, but I think this has a certain magic. Perhaps someday I will go back into the darkroom to print one or two of the other negatives, but first, I need to get warm."
~ Michael Kenna
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#1160 - John Bulmer
Potteries, United Kingdom , 1961“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
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#1139 - Ezra Stoller
Salk Institute, 1977"I sense Light as the giver of all presences, and material as spent Light. What is made by Light casts a shadow, and the shadow belongs to Light."
~ Louis Kahn
"The camera is a remarkable instrument. Saturate yourself with your subject, and the camera will all but take you by the hand and point the way."~ Ezra Stoller
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#1131 - Ezra Stoller
Fallingwater, 1971“Photography is space, light, texture of course but the really important element is time - that nano second when the image organizes itself on the ground glass”
~ Ezra Stoller
"Fallingwater is a great blessing - one of the great blessings to be experienced here on earth, I think nothing yet ever equalled the coordination, sympathetic expression of the great principle of repose where forest and stream and rock and all the elements of structure are combined so quietly that really you listen not to any noise whatsoever although the music of the stream is there. But you listen to Fallingwater the way you listen to the quiet of the country..."
~ Frank Lloyd WrightENQUIRE ABOUT THIS WORK
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#1103 - Ezra Stoller
TWA Terminal Interior, 1962"Photography is space, light, texture, of course, but the really important element is time - that nanosecond when the image organizes itself on the ground glass."
~ Ezra Stoller
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#1097 - Elliott Erwitt
New York City, [Empire State Building], 1955"It's just seeing - at least the photography I care about. You either see or you don't see. The rest is academic. Anyone can learn how to develop. It's how you organize what you see into a picture."
~ Elliott Erwitt
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#1034 - Fred Lyon
Golden Gate Bridge, Old Fort Point at Top Left, 1959"A city is not gauged by its length and width, but by the broadness of its vision and the height of its dreams."
~ Herb Caen (1916-1997)
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#1027 - Steve McCurry
Reflection, Agra, India, 1999"Most of my photos are grounded in people, I look for the unguarded moment, the essential soul peeking out, experience etched on a person’s face."
~ Steve McCurry
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#956 - Bernard Plossu
Marseille, 1975“My camera is like the arrow. Do I reach the target or does the target reach me or is it the same thing? It’s all very emotional.”
~ Bernard Plossu -
#944 - Berenice Abbott | Graduation 2023
Frank Lloyd Wright, 1954 / Printed Later“We create our buildings and then they create us. Likewise, we construct our circle of friends and our communities and then they construct us.”
~ Frank Lloyd Wright -
#940 - Bernard Plossu
La Maison de Monet, Giverny, 2011“I am possessed by Photography”
~ Bernard Plossu -
#935 - Ruth Bernhard
Eighth Street Movie Theater, New York [Frederick Kiesler, Architect], 1946“I never question what to do. It tells me what to do. The photographs make themselves with my help”
~ Ruth Bernhard
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#1 - Anonymous
The Wailing Wall, Jerusalem c. 1860Jerusalem has been, and is, the spiritual home to three major religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. To say it is a magical place is a great understatement.
I have seen and collected many images of The Holy Land but this recent acquisition is I think the greatest I have ever seen taken at this special place. I believe it to be a unique print. It is as if Irving Penn had been transported back in time.