End of an Era
Posted in Uncategorized on October 7th, 2009 by jamesToday I found out that Irving Penn, one of the greatest photographers of this century, possibly of all time, passed away. Such a sad moment, and the end of an era of classic photographers.
I was fortunate to meet Mr. Penn once. I still remember sitting across the table from him almost 9 years ago, when I interviewed to be his intern. I remember the first question he asked me, “So, tell me about yourself.” I was stunned. Mr. Penn was speaking to me. 30-45 seconds must have past before I could muster a single word. It was as if I was frozen. My brain wanted to answer the question, but my mouth refused. I finally blurted out that I was from Utah. That’s it. As you can probably imagine, things just got worse from there.
At one point he looked through my “portfolio,” which consisted of a plastic folder with clear sleeves that I had purchased at my university bookstore for $1.50. It was filled with prints of projects I had worked on in school–a still life of a silver candlestick (thoroughly retouched), a series of conceptual illustrations of figures of speech using plastic toys. I can only imagine what he must have been thinking as he glanced through the body of work, which in retrospect, was quite possibly my worst work of all time. It’s almost laughable now that I even approached The Master and showed him anything I had done, yet, I was touched by his sincerity and kindness–and just how nice of a person he was. He asked me questions about a few of the pictures, and seemed genuinely interested in who I was. The entire interview couldn’t have lasted more than 6 or 7 minutes, but in my mind hours passed.
I left pretty sure that I wasn’t going to get the internship (which I didn’t), but somehow I felt blessed that I was given even 5 minutes alone with Mr. Irving Penn, if only to bask in his light. The experience solidified my decision to dedicate my life to photography, and I look back on it as a singular moment of my life.