Milton and Nina

Couple number three. Narrowly missing them as we charged down 7th Avenue in Park Slope, hauled along by our dog on the scent of another, the man thought Caroline was an actress acquaintance of his. She wasn't, but they agreed to a picture, minding rather that I squeezed them into a corner of the entrance to a building to remove their faces from the direct sunlight. "There?" he protested, "That's rather ugly isn't it?"," pointing to the door.

Young man in scarf

He told us that the photograph pinned to his hoodie was of a buddy who passed away recently.

Kentile Floors sign

We passed the sign on the way to brunch at Bar Tano. As impressive as it was I did not want to photograph it because the detail of the light toned brick in the building was distracting. Later, returning from a stroll around Park Slope the building was in shadow. The shadows come from the elevated portion of the F and G trains that crosses the Gowanus Canal.

(History lesson: The canal was too deep for a tunnel to be built under it.)

Bar Tano

Tano Bar Saturday brunch. One superb waiter not able to cope with the unexpected crowd calls proprietress for help but first she must feed her children and children's friends. Within two minutes she had her sleeves rolled up, apron on, clearing tables and taking orders. Lovely place and v. tasty sandwiches.

William Empson in a dressing gown

He answered the door dressed like this. I said, "Please come into the garden, stay as you are, I love what you are wearing." (Writers, and others, like to be rid of photographers as quickly as possible so he also got what he wanted.) American English and English English, so different. Dressing gown? Robe?

Sid Caesar in a robe

"He's in the pool," I was told. "Go on through; you'll find him." I stood at the edge of the pool and waived at the figure treading water. "Would you mind waiting inside, I don't have anything on." He swam for another ten minutes while I put up a light and then appeared in his robe. I said that I thought he looked just right as he was.

CJ in his Sunday best

A regular churchgoer and resident of Newburgh, NY in one of his Sunday suits. He has thirteen children and opened the conversation with my wife Caroline by saying, "I knew a Caroline once."

He runs a barber's shop not far from where we stood.

Man from Jamaica

Shot twice in the stomach in a drive by shooting in Minnesota. "Just standing there on the sidewalk as we are now." We are in Newburgh, NY. where many, including him, have told me the same thing. "The poor are not looked after; the money comes in for us but we seldom see it." He worked in construction but never recovered enough to continue after the shooting.

His father wanted him to go to England with him when times were very bad in Jamaica, but he said no as he heard it was cold there. "And look where I landed up."

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.

Canal lift operator

His name was Charlie and he operated the Anderton Boat Lift. He was brought up on a barge on the canal where his father operated the lift before him. He had pneumonia three times because of the damp, he said. The lift provides a 50 feet vertical link between two navigable waterways: the River Weaver and the Trent and Mersey Canal in north-west England.

The picture was taken on the best colour film Kodak ever made: Kodachrome II, the sharpest, the most natural saturated colours under any lighting conditions, and you could expose it for half an hour and it wouldn't change colour. This is a recent scan from the original.

James Biederman

Difficult to find looks that the camera likes as much as his. James Biederman, artist; sorely missed by many in Garrison. He went to Williamsburg and found a job as artist in residence at UNC Pembroke.

Upstate street party

Sometimes I go to events that I have a particular dislike for; a place I would never go to or a function I would never attend. Street parties and barbecues are on this list. But there are people at these events, and you never know where you are going to find subjects.

Carroll Gardens barbecue

I handed the camera to Caroline because I was sitting to her right and did not have such a good view of the tired girl against the pillar as she had. I whispered, "Put the camera to your eye and press the shutter, just press it gently, don't jerk it."

Museum lovers

A place to put your feet up, have a decent sandwich and argue about the exhibits: the café at the National Gallery, Washington, DC. So absorbed with the business in hand was this couple, they would not have noticed a film crew, leave alone a photographer with a small camera. I stopped for a couple of seconds as I past them, and in case they had half an eye open, took the shot from waist level.

Couple at Margate

I remember my excitement at seeing this couple. The contrasts between them: thin and fat, stylish and traditional, angular and roundness. He so nonchalant and she wanting to play. The couple lived in the North of England and had been coming south to Margate every year for twenty-five years.

A man and his greyhound

When nobody could have told you where Benidorm or Palma were, this was the place where happy holidaymakers in England came to sun themselves (or rather shiver) on the beach in late Victorian and Edwardian times - Scarborough, Northumberland. This was taken in 1980 long after the English any longer took holidays in England. But there, perched on the cliff, is where you would have stayed one hundred years ago. Is it still standing?

In this photograph all six legs, by chance, are off the ground. In the same way, also by chance, all four legs are off the ground in the photograph of the horse, posted on October 25th, 2009. I remember in this photograph, setting the focus on a 28mm lens to about 10 ft and keeping the dog and its owner that distance away from me.

Brooklyn Barbaque

Firm stance

You can't ask people to stand around while you fiddle about with camera settings when it is 14 degrees Fahrenheit outside. Dogs don't seem to mind so much especially when there is a person there feeding him treats. This is Nicholas's dog Louis who we have adopted while he works from his snowboard keeping things shipshape on the mountain in Okemo, Vermont for the winter.

Rainer Fetting

In a comment about my photograph of Roald Dahl (posted December 3, 2009), Heather recently asked me if I would say what was the most flattering and the most offensive remark made to me when a subject saw the picture I had taken of them. Here is my answer:

I liked the German painter Rainer Fetting's comment on seeing his picture. "Some kind of sexy," he said. Or from Stanley Kubrick on the set of "Dr. Strangelove" after I had been there a few hours taking pictures of him for a magazine, he asked me if I would like to work for him. He had not actually seen any of my photographs but said, "You seem to stand in the right place."

Then the withering ones: "The carapace of an aging turtle - sub Avedon," from the British actor Dirk Bogarde. On second thoughts this is not actually offensive, just a description from a good writer.

Offensive? What about this from the writer William Styron? "I do not care for the photograph." (Now in the permanent collection at the Smithsonian.) But the most offensive answer I have received to a request to photograph somebody was made at a London tennis club in the mid seventies when I asked John McEnroe if I could photograph him. He replied, "What's in it for me?" I don't think McEnroe is like that now. (Except he is still funny.) I am a great fan of his commentating and playing.

Dirk Bogarde

See above for commentary.