"The Search for Faces" A talk by Dmitri Kasterine
Saturday, July 13th at 2 p.m.
SEEC Gallery
287 Main Street
Schoharie, NY 12157
At 2:00 pm on Saturday, July 13th I am planning to give a talk at the SEEC Gallery in Schoharie, NY where my photographs, taken over the past 70 years, are on display. Among other activities as a photographer the talk will be about how I travelled Europe and North and South America taking photographs of mid-twentieth century cultural celebrities for British and American magazines.
I shall also talk about the photographs of famous and less famous people that I initiated myself, and how my approach to photographing those who were famous or less well known differs. Also I shall be telling you about my activities now which consist of not only giving talks at libraries, schools and art foundations but how I almost daily search for faces I am looking for. Sometimes I take people as they are, without them knowing. A favorite place for this is restaurants where I find couples so drawn to each other they would hardly notice a film crew gathering round them leave alone a man with a Nikon taking their picture from waist level. The drawback with this restaurant activity is the expense.
I have no qualms about taking strangers’ pictures without their permission. What comes first is my work, never mind the ethics. Particularly as I have no mind to taking people doing embarrassing things. But, as a precaution, just in case, I often scram after taking people who don’t know I had taken them. The only time I ran into trouble was with two men who were trashing cars where they were not allowed to do so. They threatened me so I handed over the film. This was a magazine commission, not a subject I had chosen.
Casting my mind back, always there was the thought before going out to photograph somebody: suppose they decide they don’t want to be photographed by this awful looking person even if they had already agreed to it? Or supposing I can’t see a picture worth taking? It was a nervousness concerning the whole thing of barging into peoples lives. What did I do if it was a commission and I was expected to come back with something? This we shall discuss. Then during the late 1960s I was I was given so much work there was no time for these thoughts. Now they have vanished.
My book, Newburgh: Portrait of a City, published by W.W.Norton, and my latest book Who How When Where, which is a self published collection of my photograph with extended captions of information and gossip are for sale, as are all the prints on the walls. Also for sale are three volumes of mini-books, called Encounters that I printed and bound myself. The three are Life Going On, 20th Century Cultural Figures and Venice in the Rain 1962.
We look forward very much to seeing you and having some fun. Please come with questions and five or six photographs of your own. Possibly we shall see a shot we have not seen before and greatly benefit from it. A lasting thought is that photography has given me some of the most enjoyable times but also some of the most anxious. I shall tell you about both. It started badly in 1943, as an 11 year old, when I photographed the birds on my mother’s bird feeder. They all came out pin heads. But then there were the cows in our neighboring farmer’s field. They were much larger.
With all good wishes,
Dmitri
Saturday, July 13th at 2 p.m.
SEEC Gallery
287 Main Street
Schoharie, NY 12157
At 2:00 pm on Saturday, July 13th I am planning to give a talk at the SEEC Gallery in Schoharie, NY where my photographs, taken over the past 70 years, are on display. Among other activities as a photographer the talk will be about how I travelled Europe and North and South America taking photographs of mid-twentieth century cultural celebrities for British and American magazines.
I shall also talk about the photographs of famous and less famous people that I initiated myself, and how my approach to photographing those who were famous or less well known differs. Also I shall be telling you about my activities now which consist of not only giving talks at libraries, schools and art foundations but how I almost daily search for faces I am looking for. Sometimes I take people as they are, without them knowing. A favorite place for this is restaurants where I find couples so drawn to each other they would hardly notice a film crew gathering round them leave alone a man with a Nikon taking their picture from waist level. The drawback with this restaurant activity is the expense.
I have no qualms about taking strangers’ pictures without their permission. What comes first is my work, never mind the ethics. Particularly as I have no mind to taking people doing embarrassing things. But, as a precaution, just in case, I often scram after taking people who don’t know I had taken them. The only time I ran into trouble was with two men who were trashing cars where they were not allowed to do so. They threatened me so I handed over the film. This was a magazine commission, not a subject I had chosen.
Casting my mind back, always there was the thought before going out to photograph somebody: suppose they decide they don’t want to be photographed by this awful looking person even if they had already agreed to it? Or supposing I can’t see a picture worth taking? It was a nervousness concerning the whole thing of barging into peoples lives. What did I do if it was a commission and I was expected to come back with something? This we shall discuss. Then during the late 1960s I was I was given so much work there was no time for these thoughts. Now they have vanished.
My book, Newburgh: Portrait of a City, published by W.W.Norton, and my latest book Who How When Where, which is a self published collection of my photograph with extended captions of information and gossip are for sale, as are all the prints on the walls. Also for sale are three volumes of mini-books, called Encounters that I printed and bound myself. The three are Life Going On, 20th Century Cultural Figures and Venice in the Rain 1962.
We look forward very much to seeing you and having some fun. Please come with questions and five or six photographs of your own. Possibly we shall see a shot we have not seen before and greatly benefit from it. A lasting thought is that photography has given me some of the most enjoyable times but also some of the most anxious. I shall tell you about both. It started badly in 1943, as an 11 year old, when I photographed the birds on my mother’s bird feeder. They all came out pin heads. But then there were the cows in our neighboring farmer’s field. They were much larger.
With all good wishes,
Dmitri