got into photography — I trained my eyes to perceive everything in terms of geometry and light. In a sense, you could say photography was a byproduct of painting. 

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When I began painting people, my subjects rarely agreed to pose for more than an hour, so I often had to photograph them, then transfer their image to the canvass later via the photo. Pretty soon I realized it was a redundant process, especially since I could produce my ideas in a photograph in a fraction of the time it took to create a painting. Perhaps it was the impatience or impetuosity of youth, or an organic progression, but I abandoned the brush and embraced the camera. And I haven't looked back since.

 

Unfortunately, my first photographs weren’t very good. I began taking pictures seriously at age fourteen with a hand-me-down Minolta camera from my dad. It was only half functional, which would explain why those images were poorly exposed. Why they weren’t compelling... well... that was something I had yet to learn. Still, rather than giving up, I persisted. A year later, I saved up enough money from a summer job to buy a used Leica R3 and a 50 mm lens. It took me all summer to scrounge up the necessary cash, and when I finally put my hands on the Leica, it sparked my life-long love affair with German cameras.

 

The R3 was a sexy piece of machinery that invited me to experiment with different styles and techniques. It was such a joy to use that I never needed to take a photography class. I got my schooling on the streets, photographing just about anything and anyone, and learning from my mistakes. In the city that never sleeps, you could find me under the rattling subways, near the tenement buildings, or inside sleazy cocktail bars in the seediest parts of town. Anywhere that had any character, I’d be there with my Leica in hand, waiting for an elusive moment. Those experiences taught me more about photography than any classroom ever could.

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I was fascinated early on by fashion photography. As a teenager, my male friends thought I was strange. While they were at the corner bodega trying to sneak a peek inside Playboy, I’d be on the other side, flipping through the pages of Vogue. For me, that’s where the real beautiful women were. I remember spending countless hours in the art section of the local library, poring over the works of the photographers I admired. The clean, minimalist monochrome portraits of Richard Avedon and Irving Penn were as poignant to me as the graphic, sexually-charged imagery of Helmut Newton. Their images spoke to me in a language that transcended words. And I too wanted to communicate in that language.