Hood and scarf

They were sitting in the farthest and darkest corner of Park Slope's al di là Trattoria. I had my back to them, but Caroline said I should photograph them. As they rose to leave she was up and asking them. I saw their strikingly pale and unblemished complexions, one in a hood and the other bare-headed, but wrapped several times in a scarf, like an inflatable ring worn by those in the water who cannot swim. They stood outside against the window of the restaurant lit by the veiled winter sun of the late afternoon.

Ryan again

As his café (it will be his in the middle of January) is the best in Cobble Hill for oatmeal, coffee and lightening polite service, we are swept there by a current of past memories. And you only have to glimpse him and something about his appearance causes you to grope for your camera. Last week it was the red and black hat.

Man from Jamaica

He was outside his apartment building on Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn. "Take it!... Take it!" he said, "and send me a copy." To the question of where he was from originally he replied, "Jamaica, and that's not Jamaica, Queens".

Man in hat and mac

The hat was the first thing I noticed, then the firmness of push that he exerted on the baby carriage. He was on home duty, it was Sunday, and although he spends the week testing his inventions to destruction at his laboratory, he is more than happy to push and nurture his son on the weekends.

Anything that has to be demolished on stage in a theatre he builds. He tests it to destruction ten times to see that it works properly. "Left it late for the first child."

Youth in fur hat

Caroline spotted this young man strolling through the park and was struck by his leisurely manner compared to the fathers (mostly alone) pushing one, two and sometimes three children in a frenzy of rush and disorder.

I had been stuck with an 87 year old with many war stories to tell. He relived for me the terrifying image of standing look out on the deck of a merchant vessel bound for Archangel for two hour watches with the temperature at minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit waiting to be torpedoed by a U-boat. "You'd last less than five minutes in those waters."

I caught up with them and made my excuses . "You've got to listen to stories like that, haven't you," the youth said, "You can't just walk away and say you've got an appointment."

We were looking for a background and my subject said, "What about the red wood we just past."

Perfect Park Slope

I found a blank wall away from the throngs of young and old heading for Prospect Park, Brooklyn, on the first warm day of March. The sun bounced off the sidewalk and road. Lindsay lives in New Paltz, New York, and got herself a very good degree at Suny New Paltz only to find there were no jobs in anything she had studied so she has returned to school to train as a nurse.

Jesse was a little uncertain about having his picture taken.

"Do her alone," he said, "She's the one."

But I liked them together; she with her woolen hat and he with his shades reflecting the bare trees.

Jonathan Winters

Jonathan Winters said he'd like me to collect him from his house in North Hollywood and drive him to my Holiday Inn where I had pinned a piece of gray paper to the wall of a suite and put up a light. My assistant stood in for a test shot (recorded on Polaroid) so that we'd be ready on my return.

When I got to the house Mr. Winters answered the door wearing a dark blue blazer and an English schoolboy cap (the one worn by virtually every English schoolboy from the late 19th century up until the 1960s.) He showed me into a room where hundreds of hats of different kinds hung on the walls. He tried many of them on and an hour later we were satisfied with the English school cap, a tam o'shanta, together with a silver topped ebony cane, and a stetson.

On the run back to the hotel Mr Winters sat in silence bolt upright in his seat with his hands in his lap. Suddenly I heard a police siren. I looked in my mirror but saw nothing. Then a second later I realized what it was. The inspired Mr. Winters had begun an imaginary commentary between myself and a policeman who had pulled me over for speeding. Brilliantly he seized the contrast between the rough LA cop and the staid Englishman. His perfect mimicry of the two accents had me in helpless laughter.

A young writer outside Café Orwell

He was standing outside Café Orwell smoking a fat yellow cigarette. Was Orwell a vegan? Because the café offers only Soy milk. It's a dark place, five or six writers tapping away at their illuminated keyboards. There was nobody talking to anybody. This man liked to talk. He lived in a hostel round the corner. They would find him a job if they had any jobs, but they didn't have any.

Roald Dahl

I don't remember if Roald Dahl was much interested in film (although he was married to Patricia Neal), but several of his books have been made into movies - very recently: "Fantastic Mr. Fox". I remember him more for his love of wine and food, gardens and talk. He wrote to me when I sent him this picture: "You will notice that this person is leaning at about 30 degrees off the true vertical line. This is a fairly accurate reflection of his attitude to life."

Steve Martin

Because a number people have asked about him, I am posting my picture of Steve Martin.

Time: the late eighties. Place: our loft on Lafayette Street, New York City. The buzzer rang. I answered it. "It's Steve Martin", the voice said.

"Please come up. Ninth floor."

I waited at the entrance to the loft, wondering nervously what the size of his entourage would be. How will I get them all out of the way. Out stepped Mr. Martin from the elevator, dressed in a trilby hat, tie and blazer... alone. No agent, publicist, friend, lawyer, body guard, or wife.

Once I asked a writer who came to a shoot not to talk to the subject while I was photographing him, but he persisted, so I asked him to wait, please, downstairs, in the coffee shop. He was furious. I like not a soul present when taking a photograph. After all, I wouldn't interrupt the writer if he was writing or interviewing.

Mr. Martin drank some coffee, liked it, made polite conversation, telephoned his wife about the purchase of a painting and never made a funny remark or told a story. He disappeared to the bathroom three or four times. He complied with my directions from behind the camera with absolute exactness.

As we saw Mr. Martin off at the entrance to the elevator, one of us asked if he liked cats. "Oh! I love them, why?"

"We weren't quite sure what to do." Caroline said. "We have three. But in case you didn't like them we put them in the neighbor's apartment for the morning.

Gentleman on Myrtle Avenue

Meanwhile across the street, Caroline spied a gentleman in a hat. He spoke no English, but he understood that I wanted to photograph him. He did not want to move from the spot where we saw him because he was waiting for the bus. I found this slit of sunlight shining through a gap in the overhead rail tracks only a few feet from where we were standing.

The bus came and he beckoned us to ride the bus with him. We wondered whether he wanted our company or did he think we too had been waiting for the bus.

Alex and Ashley

When I first saw this couple, they were sitting on a bench in the museum, but I was under the direct gaze of one of the guards. As I wanted the couple to look a certain way, I would have had to have spoken to them, which would have drawn the attention of the enemy. Now that everybody has a digital camera the guard would probably have known how to delete the offending photograph and demanded to do so.

Both Caroline and I were astonished at the youthful appearance of the woman in this photograph when we learned her occupation. At first, we did not believe that we had heard correctly, which was that she was a Professor of Sociology at Boston University (or would be in September), so young - not possible, and assumed we had heard wrong. But when I checked with them for the caption we had not heard wrong and she is indeed a professor.

I often do not want to take people away from the location where I first saw them, because I was drawn not only by their looks but also by their gestures and pose. It's very difficult to re-create that in another place. You have to start again really - go for something new, which is what I did here.

It was the first warm day after many bitterly cold ones and the sun reflecting from the snow covered ground gave a soft light.