A Life In Photography

I’ve been making photographs for over half a century. In 1968, I worked for Weegee (Camera Arts Magazine, 1980). In 1972, I received a B.A. from a special program arranged by the University of Chicago at The New School. After my time with Weegee, and with no prior experience, I was hired by still-life photographer Tosh Matsumoto to work as his stylist.

With Mr. Matsumoto’s encouragement, I began taking my own photographs, often accompanying my husband, writer John Tytell, during his research for Naked Angels, a biography of the Beat Generation.

Around the same time, in 1971, I became Ralph Lauren’s first photographer, shooting his men’s and women’s collections for Polo. I worked with Ralph for four years, contributing not only photography but also styling and location scouting. One of the pivotal shoots—the Great Gatsby series—was taken at a family friend’s home on Kings Point Road on the North Shore of Long Island. It helped Ralph secure the role of costume designer for The Great Gatsby film.

In a very different turn, I left Polo for three months to journey 200 miles in a dugout canoe along the Saramacca River in Suriname. I traveled alone except for a navigator whose only English was “Looko Looko Monkey Monkey.” I camped in a lean-to and photographed the Djukas, Afro-Caribs who had lived autonomously in the forest for over two centuries.

My first publication came in 1974, illustrating a story on the Indigenous people growing flowers in Oaxaca Valley, Mexico (Magazine of Natural History, April 1975).

In 1975, supported by a photographic grant from National Geographic, I spent ten months in Asia, documenting opium production in the Golden Triangle and other regional subjects.

Back in New York by 1976, I set up a small studio and continued working in fashion and portraiture.

Female sexual fantasy, eroticism, and the nude figure have been recurring themes in my work. Playboy Press published my series A Bowl of Men in their book Female Sexual Fantasies. My Polaroids of nudes were exhibited in The Nude in Photography at the Münchner Stadtmuseum in 1984. I also built an extensive collection of X-rated photography, which was exhibited at Neikrug Photographica and other venues.

From 1978 to 1982, I made 14 trips to Haiti for Time, Stern, Geo, and Figaro, photographing painters, their inspirations, Voodoo ceremonies, and Haitian culture.

My archives contain an eclectic mix of photography—portraits of celebrated personalities, documentation of subcultures, and fashion work for designers like Givenchy, Zegna, and Christian Dior. In the 1980s, while living in Paris, I worked with W Magazine.

My editorial work has appeared in over 60 countries, distributed by Gamma Liaison, Black Star, Sipa Press, and independently.

A photographic record of Beat Generation artists in their later years was acquired by the Bibliothèque Nationale de France and the International Center of Photography (ICP), and exhibited in ICP’s Permanent Collection Gallery in 1994.

I’ve lived in abroad for many years in Paris (fluent in French) and Venice, and have traveled around the world.

My work has been exhibited at the Villa Medici in Rome, the French Institute in Athens, Amerikahaus in Berlin, the Agathe Gaillard Gallery in Paris and archived at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

In 1999, I contributed all the photography for Paradise Outlaws (HarperCollins). In 2008, I wrote, photographed, and designed My Lucky Dog (HarperCollins).

Currently, I am completing Shooting Each Other: Robert Frank and Me, a memoir about my 36-year friendship with Robert Frank, my life as a female photographer, and what it took to find my way in that world.