" I grew up in the Bronxin a modest family, at a time when the world's air transport was not very accessible. So my childhood travels were fairly straightforward: the Catskills, Boston or Washington. My first great adventureI started it in 1962, the same year I took up photography. Since then New YorkI've been through every the United States by hitchhiking to Mexico with my camera around my neck. That's how I discovered America, taking photos from strangers' cars. In 1966, thanks to a small sum of money I'd earned working on an advertising campaign, I took my first wife on a trip to America. Europe. We stayed there for a year: two months in Parissix in Spain, then a trip to the farthest reaches of Turkey. This trip changed my life and made my work known. Perhaps that's why I've always been keen to travel to make books, to Japan, Mexico, China...
Back in New York, the Museum of Modern Art offered me an exhibition. Of course, I was delighted to get the chance, even though in the 1960s the photography was not seen as a very noble art form. At the time, I was taking a lot of photos of the streets of New York, but I didn't realise that they would become a sort of historic testimony. My photographer friends and I did this for the love of the medium, and for its mystery too.
For the last two years I have been living in Tuscany with my second wife, thewriter Maggie Barrett. Lingering is essential when you don't want to stick to a fantasised, superficial ideal of a country. But I would never have imagined leaving New York, even though I've kept a studio there! My children live in the United States and the distance is sometimes difficult. La Tuscany is a place close to our hearts. Twenty years ago, we set up a writing and photography workshop here, but we only came in the summer. Then we started thinking about living here all year round. When my two best friends died within a few days of each other, we said to ourselves that we should living in the presentand we packed our bags.
Being an artist means keeping in touch with the world and who you really are inside. And very often, travelling helps to do this.
Obviously, my work has evolved in Tuscany. When I look out of the window, I see cows. So I can't really do street photographyBut I'm delighted. Artistic work must be in constant evolution. After being from black and white to colour At the start of my career, I had a large-format period. Then my wife and I spent a few months in Provenceto make a book. That's when I became interested in still life. I photographed objects that had belonged to Cézannein his studio. Basically, still life is similar to street photography. It is about capturing the relationship between things.
This new vision led to an exhibition in New York. But seeing that my work is increasingly appreciated in Europe - I had the honour of a fine exhibition at the European House of Photography in Paris in 2013 - means a lot to me. But I don't think success has any intrinsic value. What counts is pursue artistic research with humility. "
KEY DATES
- 1938: Born in New York.
- 1968: First exhibition at MoMa.
- 1978: Publishes his first book, Cape Light.
- 2001: Is the only photographer allowed on the Ground Zero site.
- 2012: Publishes the book Provence, Lasting Impressions, with his wife Maggie Barrett, as well as a retrospective book, Taking My Time.
