About

I had a Brownie Starflash when I was a boy. I remember taking pictures of the tigers at the zoo. I first used a real camera my junior year of high school. It was a 35mm Auto Taron rangefinder. Destined to be an artist, I borrowed the camera from my father to take reference photos for my painting. My dad also had an enlarger and a bunch of darkroom stuff so I set it up in the basement. It all came very naturally to me. The summer I graduated from high school I took a life drawing class at the Art Students League. I’d take the train from Mamaroneck into Grand Central Station then walk up to West 57th Street a different way each day I had class. Sometimes I had the camera but then, I didn’t know I was a photographer yet. I got a job at a midtown art studio that produced sales presentations on slides, charts and film strips. In the fall I started night classes at Pratt Institute majoring in advertising design. Once I started going into the city five days a week it wasn’t long before I decided I needed my own camera and bought a Miranda F 35mm and a couple lenses. I started taking photos but I didn’t know it was street photography. I don’t think it was called that until the New Documents exhibit at MOMA a few years later. Not many of those early negatives survive my moves over the years. My perfect education consisting of practical and academic experience didn’t last long. The summer of 1966 I received my draft notice.

Fast forward three years. After being honorably discharged I moved to South Florida where my parents had relocated. I met up with a guy I met in the Air Force and in 1970 we opened a commercial photo studio in West Palm Beach. I had done some street photography in Austin where I was stationed but my situation in Florida was even more conducive. I had lights, camera action…and a nice darkroom!

Elaine and Garry Winogrand, 1973