Photography is a subject that is of great interest to me, I love photography. I just read somewhere on the internet where someone cited that a well know celebrity was aloof. I am not going to say who that was because it really doesn’t matter. It did remind me of the time I spent in the summer of 1975 at the Maine Photographic workshop while I was taking some photography courses there.
The Maine Photographic workshops always have some of the best photographer’s instructors and that is why I went there. While there talking some courses in photography I was invited to eat lunch with one of the instructors along with a couple more students. This particular instructor was not one of my instructors and I never heard of him. We had lunch over several days together and I really enjoyed those times. Later I was invited to see his photographic works and his photography blew me to pieces. His photographs were exceptional and I thought to myself this guy should be famous for his works deserves it. His name was Arnold Newman and he indeed was famous as a photographer, I just didn’t know it.
One of the other students that I had become friends told me Arnold had commented that I seemed to be aloof. I wondered if that was supposed to be a compliment or what but did not think anymore of it until recently. That is were this story comes in. I look up in the dictionary what the meaning “Aloof” meant. I not so sure now that Arnold was paying me compliment. The definition of aloof is as follows: “chilly, distant, remote, reserved, standoffish, unapproachable, uncommunicative and disinterested. I have never though of myself being that way. I must admit that until I get to know a person better I am often times quiet until I feel comfortable with him or her. I don’t remember if I was that way back then but I can’t believe I was but for him to say that I must have been.
I started to wonder more about him and did some research on the internet about him last week. He is without question a very famous and well known photographer a lot more than I knew back in 1975. He died in June of 2006 at the age of 88. He was well known for his portraits of famous people. He was quoted as saying that he did not like photographing celebrities which is sort of ironic as he was sort of a celebrity himself.
In all the years since 1975 I never heard a lot about him and until now I just didn’t know of his fame as a photographer. His photographic works however did inspire me to learn how to be good at photography. I later open my own studio up for a time. Life however led me to pursue other interest which led me to moving to the coast and to live my dream of sailing my sailboat cruising on the east coast. I did a lot sailing doing things that I thought was to daring for me to ever do.
I am glad in some ways that I did not know who Arnold Newman was when I was in Maine back in 1975. I got to know him as just another human being who gets into his pants the same way I do who happened to be very good at photography.
I went on to study photography from other well known photographers. Some of them were Rock Gunn, Bill Stockwell who were exceptional famous wedding photographers, Peter Gowland , a famous glamour photographer to name a few. Rock Gunn and Bill Stockwell has since past away. I took courses from other famous photographers but I having a senior moment as I type this and can’t remember there names.
I never made it into the big time of photography but I did succeed in accomplishing a lot of what I love doing in photography and had my own studio until the call of sailing took me away from it.
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