'Contrasts: 1968, Manhattan - Limited Edition 1 of 15 Photograph

I, John Crosley, purchased my very first camera in early 1968, my scheduled senior year at Columbia College, Columbia University on Manhattan's west side just north of Central Park. I bought a Nikon and expected to take glamour, nude, and fashion photos with beautiful women as subjects. So I hoped. But I ended up not following in the steps of Horst B. Horst or Richard Avedon and more as a follower of Henri Cartier-Bresson. Here's the story: I did not then know the name or famous initials HCB, and only met the world famous photographer in San Francisco a year and a fraction later after I returned from freelancing in Vietnam The evening after my afternoon meeting with that iconic photographer, I was scheduled to start my photographic career as a photographer for the Associated Press San Francisco bureau, my first photographer job. I did not recognize the fame of this celebrated photographer who was in San Francisco for a giant exhibition of his photos at the (old) de Young Museum, San Francisco's large and very prestigious museum. I had been sent there by a new colleague, a newsman at Associated Press in his '60s and about to retire, Jimmy White, who had worked with Henri Cartier-Bresson in China during the fall of the Kuomintang (Nationalist Chinese) and the rise of Communism under Mao Tse Tung (spelling since changed). Cartier-Bresson's photos there were iconic, including the famous 'gold riot' photo showing Chinese queued up desperately pressed against each and clinging to a building wall in a crowd of depositors to demand back their deposited gold, the sole wealth of many before overrun by the Communists, in Shanghai. Other iconic photographs from there included photo of a palace eunuch, and Communist soldiers seated in formation on the ground before a superior, with a passing father and child looking on. The moment I met HCB on the steps of that famous museum, I did not know of his fame or know he had taken famous photos for decades and was legendary. He knew of me and my impending photographer job, and we discussed that. He told me I'd be taking photos of sports almost year round, fires, crimes and very, very many handshakes. He wondered aloud, since he was told by friend White that my photos showed artistic ambitions and talen if I'd be happy taking those sort of images. White, Cartier-Bresson's long-ago and long-time friend. in arranging the meeting, had told HCB that my meager portfolio images from age 21 to 23 reminded White images by HCB himself (but HCB did not ask to see my images and I am not aware he ever did). It was not a long meeting, held outdoors on the 'old' se Young Museum's steps,, then I went into his giant exhibition and was filled with wonder at the fabulous images that to then represented his life's work, representing more than I ever could have hoped to produce all done with amazing composition, artistry and with fabulously well-presented and interesting subjects -- just as varied as life itself, it seemed. That work took the wind out of my sails and immediately caused me to rethink my photographic ambitions. He had taken the images I sought to be able to take through my anticipated career, but he had done so already and his work 'occupied the field' of the sort of photos I envisioned, he had taken them so well, that even if I persisted I would always be an Henri Cartier-Bresson wanna be. I wondered if I could ever approach his mastery. I did not know that his 'eye' and his timing were iconic and compared my meager photographic abilities only to his and found my work ambitious, but wanting. This an early image that White saw and spoke about the HCB. Henri Cartier-Bresson saw how enthusiastic I was, and advised it better to 'shoot for yourself, John', there on the steps of what now is called the 'old' de Young museum, before its relocation. I soon learned Cartier-Bresson's work was celebrated as that of the world's finest photographer of a genre he literally had created, or at least he was celebrated world wide as possibly the world's greatest photographer within and outside that genre. and of his times. Immediately I wished to purchase just one photo, and the price tags were not so large, often in the low to middle hundred dollars. But my upcoming AP weekly salary was $135 a week, and gave almost no room for rent and food, let alone purchasing any HCB image. Many images his Magnum agency that he founded were publicity 'throwaways' sent to publications to interest them in his work, and retrieved from publication garbage bins by some who saw their value, even unsigned, but in original silver, as having potential worth. Some of those HCB throwaways later entered the market and fetched prices in the tens of thousands of dollars. Immediately after viewing his work, I recognized his greatness and also the soundness of his advice. That advice informed a life decision I made that day to forego my photographic ambitions, and look elsewhere for a career. I showed up for 'work' at Associated Press late that afternoon for my first photographer shift and announced I was quitting. Sports and handshakes were not for me. Taken aback at my turning down what so many saw as a 'golden opportunity' the bureau chief accepted my resignation but offered me a job continuing as a newsman/writer and to start that day. I protested I never had been to journalism school, had never worked for a newspaper, had no journalism training and never had written a story, much less been published. They told me I was considered a 'natural' and handed me notes on a clipboard of bare facts and telephone numbers, then pointed to a an empty chair with in front of a metal desk, typewriter and telephone. I was given the notes and told to use the phone to contact those who might know of the story, all by telephone, the heart of the Associated Press work. Make calls, get the facts, and write the story, I was instructed. Idid just that. For my first story ever I was given contacts to inquire of the search for a kid, 5 or so, for several days in Yosemite Park during nights below freezing nights. Hundreds were searching for him in the immense wilderness of that National Park. It was a nationwide death watch; the park headquarters were besieged by reporters and TV satellite trucks awaiting word. Everyone expected news would be about a body found in the wilderness. I was 'nobody' but I was calling on behalf of Associated Press, subscribed to by almost all of the world's significant media, so my phone inquiry got attention. I called park ranger headquarters, expecting the worst, but the rescuers had just found the kid, and they immediately put him on the telephone to me -- the first reporter to speak to him. It was my fist interview ever, but I just natujrally talked to the found kid at his level, with the wide-eyed wonder of how a little kid could survive out there in the cold and what it was like and asked him to tell me his story. He did and it included an encounter with a 'big bad bear' that he ran from into the branches of a tree. Thinking quickly he had grabbed branches from near the ree's center and shook them up and down; the bear lost interest and went away. I had mentally put myself in his shoes, altered my questions to ask about what happened as he might have seen them, so he could recount his events to me naturally. It worked. He had found drinking water in a stream, and had other experiences but the encounter with the 'big bad bear' got the lede. Thjis little kid had used his wits to survive, and the world read his story I wrote and were beguiled; their worst fears were NOT realized by a quick-thinking youngster. It was an entirely unexpected happy ending. The story I wrote was sent world wide and printed on front pages and in front sections worldwide and also prominently on television and radio news. My very first story ever was a resounding success and assured my career as a serious journalist for my lifetime. I had assumed my first attempts at story writing would fail, I would be exposed as an imposter and a mistake, but instead rose to heights, the first story, the 'natural' they said I was. I wrotre slowly and unsure, worried about making mistakes and agonizing over almost every word as I wrote soon ater. Editors groaned and waited for imortanjt sotries from me until the night shift solo newsman took me out for a beer and said: Listen kid you gotta write faster, we're a 24-hour organization, we depend on speed, and you're slow as mollasses,. Also, you resent editing. The editor is ther to make you look better, understand. And I did. From the day on my writing speeded up until I could write stores not really needing editing and ready for the 'wire' as fast as I could type -- over 60 words per minute without rewriting. Soon editors gave me stories about scientic and medical matters they could not understand, often from Stanford Unviversity, and my stories were featured and printed world wide after I translated medical and technical terminology into readable English, asked important questions about issues that had been unexpained, overlooked or expressed so poorly theycould not be understood in texts provided us by say, Stanford. The result was within a month or so I was the go-to writer about such subjects in addition to other matters. I quickly geared up to write as fast as I cold for the 'wire' , at 60+ words per minute often without editing and no rogh drafting -- just from my mind to the tyhped page. It was a great skill tht helped me pass my bar examination years later, where, as a typist, I started my typed bar question answers a good 20 minutes prior to any one of the 90 or so in my exam room starting to type. The issue with a bar exam, is not to get the 'correct answer' in the essay portion but to show off your ability to dissect a legal and factual situation as a lawyer might and reach a lawyerlike conclusion but only after noting every step of the process and decisions encountered and legal rules applied. I passed the first time on what was considered the nation's most difficult bar exam. Traditionally about 50% passed that exam the first time; some took i 12 or more times. Pass once, and you're given an attorney license . ng on the 'wire' as fast as I could tye -- 60+ words per minute, and never since have I resented a good editing. I had felt my first attempts at writing news stories would fail and 'expose' me for lacking talent and I'd soon be 'washed out, jobless. Surprisingly, the opposite had happened. After a summer in San Francisco writing for AP and taking photos in spare time (on my own), I was transferred to Reno for a year covering Nevada from Utah to the Sierra Crest including parts of California, then management invited me to transfer to New York City AP world headquarters to begin work that soon had me acting head of a world wide department. I had by then written millions of published words distributed through Nevada, California and often throughout the US and many went world wide. Photography was to have been a visual break from a stupendous student work load at Columbia that for four years included reading an average of one book a week for each of five courses -- five books per week -- over 20 books a month. Burned out from reading so much, I dreamed of taking photographs, and heavily shopped the camera market. I settled on the storied Nikon 35mm. I talked the old Jewish camera store owner and his doting wife in their lower Manhattan discount photo store into donating to me two (expensive) rolls of 36 exposure Tri-X (B&W) film so I immediately could use the camera I was buying. With friend, I carried the camera from the store and walked to the Staten Island Ferry which friend and I took so I could ry the camera out, without lessons and without even reading the manual. Focus was natural and it had a built in meter. What more could one want? I shot those two rolls, and ONE photo from the first roll was a lifetime keeper, one I still show today, depicting passengers on the ferry's second floor deck in an arrangement I labored show as to make 'artistic,' at low light with low low shutter speeds aboard that heavily vibrating ferry. The rest of my captures were throwaways. That process, taking lots and lots of worthless images punctuated by a very good and sometimes even memorable one, is a process I have repeated countless times since, with 95+% of my work being 'failures' alternated by an occasional wonderful image. This is one of the those I classified as 'keeper', a scene from NYC's government and civic enter dominated by government buildings for the city, the state and the US government. With new camera and a friend that Friday evening, a few months previously my friend and I started the process that resulted in this image, and has informed my life. From the outset, with on that January, 1968 purchase, I set out with new camera to make my mark on the photographic world. I told no one, and taking good photographs for me was hot, sweaty work that involved doing things that were hard for me and for which I had no training or experience. Taking a good photo often brought out sweat and terrific concentration as endeavored to turn something I saw into something you would want to see too. That 'sweat' from concentration is something that persisted for many years, then suddenly went away; I was comfortable taking photos of almost anything. Enrollment and posting photos on an Internet 'host;' site and sharing my images to be critiqued by worldwide photographer members of their 800,000 registrants got me sometimes good criticism and great feedback. Within six months, there were a million registered clicks. The number now is 200 to 300 million views on a site I no longer use. (they changed the format) From the start I told no one about my photographic ambitions. I liked the posting and critique process. I hoped some images would some day be be recognized, including this one, and am overwhelmed by the number now widely known with some even 'memes'. I had set out with that January purchase with new camera, without lessons secretly believing I could take such images. I have spent a lifetime trying still often with considerable effort but almost never with the 'sweat' I generated in my '20s, trying to make 'great' captures. As a student, I could not afford to print even in Columbia's free and well-equipped darkroom; paper cost money. I used then a special, little known method for viewing my 'negatives' as positives -- holding the negatives up at a special angle to the light so the positive image could be seen. Since no 'blowjups' were possible using that method, I developoed a shooting style that resulted in images that could be seen and understood that way. That meant heavy concentration on larger parts of an image,such as composition, so the lack of money helped me to make images heavily reliant on more easily seen 'large' features such as good composition. That reliance has stayed with me to this day and informed most of what I shoot. Seldom are my images reliant just on detail, and many of the most successful and well received celebrate good composition even when they have lots of detail. How cheeky I had been in supposing I could make great images and even attempt to write stories with no training for either and no experience. The results of my shooting the first day aboard that ferry were not all world class by any means' far from that. But one photo of three passengers on three benches with three support poles stood out and has endured -- an image that is among my lifetime best, and I still show it today. I had found my 'style'and my photographic 'voice' on that first roll of film. I still proudly show that photo as representative of my style; discovered with that first roll of film. I had somehow stumbled onto a surprise and an unknown innate ability to take 'street' photos, as they later became known. At that time they were termed 'documentary' news and pictorial publication photos with a decidedly artistic bent. There was then little interest in such photos; only Aperture Magazine, in which I longed to be featured. Within a few months Columbia students rioted, and shook that 25,000 student institution to its core and caused it to be shut down for the year after protesters occupied it entirely. I documented that takeover and sold images to the NY Daily News and other publications including Time Life syndicate which published 'Life' Magazine, the premier photo pictorial in the USA. Margaret Bourke-White made a career of her work for 'Life', and they bought my images, which greatly pleased me. As a rioter famously sat in the university president's chair and helped himself to the university president's stogies, I was taking photos. Then with photos or film in hand, I took the subway headed for various publications in NYC which was filled with head offices of publications, and with trepidation I walked in through strange and forboding doors and said to receptionists and others 'I have film, is anybody interested?' Many were. Martin Luther King previously was assassinated by a bullet, I photographed damage in Harlem the next day then caught a train (no film) to Washington D.C. to photograph the race riots there that had the city under dusk to dawn curfew. That was my Spring Break'. I didn't make it to D.C. because a gun-toting man on the frigid overnight train to Washington during an altercation he started, with his Smith & Wesson police special .38 caliber, shot another passenger. And me with the same bullet. Hospitalized in Trenton, N.J., and labeled a 'Good Samaritan' by the national press in newscasts, Mafia members came to my hospital bedside and offered to kill my shooter who had been arrested almost immediately.' I declined the offer. Two or three days later, bullet still in my body, I was discharged to return to Manhattan, but had a police hold on me to go to the local cop station to report the crime and give a witness and victim statement. After leaving the train coach following the shooting during an altercation, the shooter, on finding his victim had survived, that initial shot, had returned to the passenger coach that was stopped on the Trenton, N.J. platform, re-entered that coach, went to his victim and pistol whipped him, then shot his victim a second time with no mistake he meant to murder him. He put his plice special revolver barrel to that victim's mouth and pulled the trigger, as the istol whipped man was down. A rsounding BOOM filled the coach. Amid a growing pool of blood the kneeling man with wounded hip wnet down, blood running from the gunshot wound to his head. 'Mister, don't shoot him again, he's already dead,' a female passenger implored the gunman, and the deranged man didn't fire another bullet; the victim lay motionless on the train coach floor, red blood coloring the worn aisle. But he wasn't dead. He had flinched and jerked his head sideways when fired on, and the bullet grazed his ear, taking out a piece, and also grazed his cheek. Both sites bled profusely and temporarily he was blind and deafened by the shock and sound.. Stunned and knocked unconscious, he dropped into his blood on the rain aisle. But his quick reflexes saved his life; quickly he regained site and hearing soon returned. The shooter had left amid screams from passengers running from the coach 'He shot him again! He shot him again. I was by then hidden, fearing I would be next, but the shooter had exited the platform up an escalator to ground level and was going through the station when cops arrested him. The other victim and I rode together to the hospital in an 'ambulance' We talked about what happened. We talked about our shared experience. He soon was stitched up and soon discharged with a 'bandaid' over the entry and exit wound to his hip where he had been shot through and through, that bullet ending up deep in my left thigh carrying with it debris that almost a month later almost caused its amptation and threatened my life and causing extensive and prolonged hospitalization. Quick reflexes had saved the other man's life. A cop started to drive me to the cop station on hospital discharge, and over the police radio we heard calls relating to a riot forming in downtown. We were heading right to the middle as the cop put on his helmet and with thrown bottles,rocks, and with rioters wieldikng axe handles and other implements of harm, we drove right through the growing riiot as shop windows were smashing and looted by black Trendon residents outraged at assassination of a man mos revered (including me). On arrival at the police station, the cop started to take my statement, but we were interrupted frequently as cops geared up to fight rioters and keep order from rioters. The stogie chomping police chief looked like a clone of the Rod Steiger bigoted pollice chief character from the movie 'In the Heat of the Night'. Periodicallly he would emerge from his office near us to bark orders. He was callingikn 'mutual assistance' from every police department within driving distganc. As those cops arrived, they immediately went to the streets to try to quell the rioters, leaving the solo cop assigned to me and me alone in the station. The prototype Rod Steiger look alike had taken to the street to supervise. We were all alone there on the second floor. Suddenly with great noise the rioers broke into the police station. They soon started up the old, creakyh wooden steps to the second floor where we were. My cop, turned protector, grabbed a nearby shotgun, loaded with buckshot and next to me, teetering on a cane, he stood there, shotgun aimed at a mass of rioters trying to come up the steps, murder in their eyes. He dared them to advance and be fired on. and a standoff lasted briefly then The rioters turned and ran, my life had been saved. And the photo opportunity of a lifetime passed before my eyes. the image my camera coudl capture was of a lone, outlined and partially silhouetted cop aiming his shotgun at climbing rioters clearly intent on doing us harm -- that murdershowing in their eyes. In the mid 20th Century's turmoil with war and assassinations, the photo would be not only a good or potentially great, and certainly emblematic of troubled times. It was a photo I didn't take though I was carrying my cameraand fully able to take the envisioned photo. Reason: No film. Throughout this several day ordeal I had 'NO FILM'./ I had left expensive Manhattan late at night to goto riot-torn Washington , D.C., to have a chance at photographic greatness but intended to buy my film much more cheaply in Washington, D.C. Potential photographic greatness just passed me by. The image I might have taken surely would have been emblematic and worthy of the Pulitzer Prize but the fabulous scene passed unrecorded before me because I was then poor and had not yet bought film. Now that image is only something to conjure up and write about, it's one of those 'might-have-been stories. I returned home later that day to NYC and Columbia, which weeks later would be itself be taken over by rioters. I had no photos of the shooting or the Trenton,N.J. rioters. No film! I did not make that mistake with the Columbia Univ rioters and university takeover. From then on I always have been loaded with film or with digital, bateries chargted and almost always as I walk about I keep resetting my camera exposure and even focus and/or lens to be able to capture any scene before me. I use two cameras and zoom lenses to ensure I ever am caught with the wrong lens for the distance or composition. I am a photo opportunist who learned his lesson the hard way with one that 'got away'.,an important one. I truly think I may have missed a Pulitzer Prize. In between riots, shooting, and other and sundry disturbance which marred the beginning of the turbulent year, 1968, I wandered the streets of Manhattan, camera in hand, and took photos such as this, with graphics I hope are part of my trademark, together sometimes with social comment. That is the story of how I came to be able in an instant to take a photo such as this where timing is almost everything after realizing the photo potential of two, great contrasting subjects with one moving against a great background and that only cold be captured IF the subject, background and walking pedestrian were at the perfect places in the frame for a compositionally good and story telling image. Cartier-Bresson's images often were termed great because he so often captured 'the decisive moment' I(a erm coined by his publisher). Here I hope I captured 'the decisive moment.' That may be why AP Newsman, Jimmy White brought me to the attention of Henri Cartier-Bresson for a brief meeting that changed my life. That's the rest of the story. And I'm sticking to it. John (John Crosleyu_ (c) 1968-2018, text and image, John Crosley/Crosley Family Trust, all rights reserved. No reproduction editing, rewriting or other use without express prior written permission from copyright holder.