'''Gypsy Fortuneteller' San Francisco, 1969" - Limited Edition of 15 Photograph

'''Gypsy Fortuneteller' San Francisco, 1969" One day while walking the streets of San Francisco's downtown area before joining the staff of Associated Press in that city, I was taking what I hoped would be 'interesting' photos. For me, 'interesting', was the essence of photos I sought. The photos I then took, mostly, then to now, are now called usually 'street' photos, but then did not have the style we now know as 'street'. Then the term 'photo-journalistic' was often used; I never before 2000 can ever remember the name of photo which now we know as 'street'. At that time, the style now called 'street' had no such name or if it did perhaps it did but I never heard it used until after 2000. The name of the style has changed but the goal has not -- to capture an interesting image in an artful manner that through some photo magic would beckon viewers to have a look at something you saw, thought magical, and sought to preserve for the future. The camera, lens and print were the photographer's amber. Life was captured in that photographic amber for all time, if one was fortunate and skillful enough to see worthwhile scenes and frame and expose them properly. If possible that image would have some artistic element, some look that begged to be observed, often in part because of some artistic flavor and magic caught by the photographer. It might be a one-off photo with a success that never could be repeated , or sometimes with the best photographers when their work reached a certain level the elements of success could be rearranged and repeated. This image of a Gypsy (a Romany as now preferred) was taken after San Francisco's famed 'Summer of Love' which unhappily I missed; I spent that summer in Vietnam taking photos of combat situations -- not the love that pervaded the California Bayside city called Baghdad by the Bay' by that city's famous columnist, Herb Caen. When I returned to the USA after photographing people and fighting in Vietnam, I decided to look for work in the San Francisco Bay Area. I freelanced campus riots there, much as I had done at my Alma mater, Columbia in NYC, where I had learned that cops swinging nightsticks often targeted photographers' cameras. At U Cal. Berkeley's People Park demonstrations I learned to wrap my Nikons with fabric electrical tape and let it hang down as though I had just rescued the camera from some musty old attic; no one could find worth in my fine Nikons at that time - they looked old and dingy' Yet a few hours of rubbing and some solvent and the tapes glue would disappear and the camera would look new. Tape also protected from scuffs and other harm. The trick was to make the camera look so 'seedy' that no self-respecting cop would ever want to waste the effort of smashing it (or you) with his nightstick. After freelancing campus riots at San Francisco State and later the People's Park campus uprising at Univ. of CA. Berkeley across the bay, I submitted photographer job applications at both major wire services there: Associated Press and United Press International, each located on different floors of the Market Street tower called 'Fox Plaza', UPI offered me a to be their photographer in Portland, OR, but I turned then down. Half a decade later met at a fast food restaurant the man, by then retired, who was offered the UPI job I had turned down. He said the UPI job was the 'job of a lifetime' I told him, that I was glad I had turned down that job; for me it was NOT the job of a lifetime. Associated Press hired me as a photographer, but due to chicanery from expert writer, Jimmy White of AP's writing staff there, and his friend, touring Henri Cartier-Bresson, a Frenchman I had never heard of, these two legendary journalists somehow teamed up to trick me into turning down the photo job as being without a future. Cartier-Bresson had seen my work from a year and a half from my AP job application with White of the AP staff's help and each had arranged me to meet the legendary photographer outside an exhibition of his, opening at a famous S.F. Museum. HCB offered me wise, fatherly advice. 'The photographer's job is dead end' and not a carer with a future, he told me. The two men orchestrated me to hear those words and see the magic of Cartier-Bresson's first photos just hours before my first afternoon's work at AP's S.F. photo department. HCB's advice was great I went to AP and quite.First, they said, wrtie us a story. Humor us, they said. 'You did really good job writing photo captions on the test we gave you months ago. It was a setup! I objected, feeling that because I was quitting the same day I started work, they wanted to rub my audacity, and humiliate me somehow. 'Make him write a story,, he'll fail, and we can criticize and humiliate him and show him how much he lacked in skill in real journalism -- writing stories,' I could imagine them setting me up for a failure. 'That would show me,' I takes skill to write a story, and even if you can take photos -- then dismiss a photographer job because of 'no future' -- they would teach me that their work was dignified and required great skill. If I could take photos then just walk away from a great photo job, they'd get me. They'd goad me into writing a story where when no journalism school and never having written a story, i was sure to fail. the job of writing news was factors more difficult and not to be denigrated.. Just as White and Henri Cartier-Bresson plotted, I had showed up for work at AP's evening shift and announced my resignation. Their hidden goal was to get me to write a story and develop my story writing to some success -- White felt I had potential as a news writer but without journalism school, it would forever go unrealized. I did as the two plotted, and after 'quitting' that first day at work, the staff and management at AP San Francisco urged me to try to 'try my hand at writing a story'. I never had written a story to that date and knew surely I would fail at the task. But under incessant goading, they made me try. Here's a clip board with some bare facts, old stories and the ranger phone number at Yosemite. See what's happening to that lost six year old who's out in subfreezing weather for most of a week in his summer clothes. It was a 'death watch' story, but I did not recognize that. But just as I was calling, they found the boy; brought him to the phone for his first interview. He told me about drinking from streams, eating berries, sleeping in bushes for warmth and how he shook a long evergreen bough up and down to frighten away a 'big black beat' that came snooping his way. I wrote my first story ever, it went on the AP wire and showed up next day on front pages and sections nationwide, even world wide -- the 'feel good' story of the season. I was an overnight success (literally). Writing that first story and seeing it turn up in print nationwide on front pages caused me to become an 'instant success' from my first story, and thereafter I never had to try to 'live up to my potential' I arrived initially at such a high level it caught the attention of APs management. I never had to worry about my potential after that. AP targeted for higher things. From that first story ever, with NO journalism training or experience in news writing, I had exceeded any goal that might have been set for me. Veteran newswoman Katy Tur recently was asked how to succeed in journalism She had parents who were a famed news team who worked together in the sky and explained that her parents' daring was how she came to know journalism. Asked how to succeed in journalism, she said there was no single path to success. But, she said, one day a news person will get a 'big break'. 'Take that break and run with it' she advised. You don't know how or when it will arrive, but be ready for it. that will open the door to higher things. Rinse and repeat. (paraphrased) If your work is good you will succeed in a way that never could have been predicted. My AP break came my first hours at work; the reward for my first story was a lifetime following. I was a 'star' of the AP without realizing it until I was three times my age when I had written that first story. Only then did I begging to recognize the great and wonderful things that had happened to enrich my extremely interesting life. As Tur and others writing of first breaks opined, if you show talent, ability and energy, sooner or later it will show to others and then you will be allowed to rise as far as you are capable. I got that big break the first day, first story. Much, much later I found that my AP work was being carefully watched at APs highest levels. With NO journalism training or experience, I was full of self-doubt but decided to put on a front of being 'able' and figured i had just fooled everybody who could not see my huge self doubts. In law later those same self doubts bedeviled me. From the outset I knew I would never be able to think on my feet as well as those skilled trial lawyers who often were sent to oppose me and my clients' cases. With so many self doubts but fearing being humiliated,I worked each case to death. I tried never to give up. Sometimes I took in cases for which there were large inquires, but it might take years before I could find someone else other than my client 'at fault' and likewise I could not find a source to pay a recovery. But as i reflected on those cases, very often the 'fault and the 'source became known to me. I worked then a lot on 'gut instinct. Even if I could not articulate how, I often took what others saw as very chancy cases on the hope I would find someone at fault who also had a means to pay my client. I became an expert on insurance law and found there was much that insurance companies did not tell their insureds. Far too often they lied or told half truths to their insureds and unless the attorney had read hundreds of insurance policies few could think the potential client sitting in front of them was entitled to a recovery and even if there was an entitlement, there was no conceivable source to pay the recovery. Often i found the 'fault of others and the 'source of recovery in cases with huge injuries at a rate to put my legal brethren to shame. Even if I could not think on my feet as fast as great trial attorneys I worked my cases up so well that a law clerk reading my notes and asking witnesses questions from my 'facts' summary could win the case against anyone. Famous lawyers seldom contest simple cases they could not win -- they settled them. I learned how to get larger settlements in most cases than juries might award for the same case with only a small fraction of the work. My work in sleuthing out insurance cheating was highly respected. I worked at seeking recoveries as an 'art form' far more than the rote manner in which many attorneys approached them and routinely got far better results. often I was the only attorney to take various cases, but could not fault attorneys who had turned the case down -- they just were short sighted and took in my view the easy ones' while i reveled in the 'tough ones' . I was so afraid of failure i worked into the night, all night until 3-4. am. the following day in my home's large, law library equipped office, woke up and drove to my downtown Silicon Valley office. I literally wrote out every word of every case, so I left nothing to chance. If a case had a soft spot or weakness, I learned it before anyone else and tried to find a way to work around bad facts or unwelcome things. Looking backward, I understood that I made money and a great living by finding cases involving large amount of recovery that the great majority of my fellow attorneys could not see, but when I saw such cases, my task was reduced to waiting for time to pass and writing sometimes outrageously long letters, then collecting the money for my clients, often in ways others never had foreseen. During that period with AP, followed by a sting at NYC headquarters of a business magazine for chief executives I I just worked hard and never had a serious goal in journalism. I wished to practice law, not be a journalist. Journalism was a happenstance; law was a career I dreamed of. And law was definitely not 'dead end' Journalism was a sideline, easily abandoned. Associated Press sent me first to Reno, NV bureau for experience, then just shy of a year a worldwide boss flew to the West Coast to meet me and offer me a job working for his department in NYC' AP world headquarters. I accepted and wen to NYC. I worked hard and often did work to bridge my department with others and with AP's big boss general manager To me, Associated Press had more of what I was looking for than UPI. AP had a staff of an est. 5,000 professionals and was the world's top rated wire service. It was a prestigious job, but they traded on that prestige and highly skilled workers were paid abysmally low salaries. They moved me to Reno after writing and editing in San Francisco, and after less than a year in Reno, I was asked by AP to become a New York editor. Within a year and a half in NYC AP's worldwide general manager (CEO) rewarded my hard work and offered to mentor me to take over his job as AP's worldwide boss when he retired at age 65 as required. He said AP rules required he retire at age 65. I thought he then was 55, but he actually was 60. His retirement would be i five years, when I was just turned 30. He offered to mentor me for one of the most prestigious jobs in world news. First was language training in Italian and then Japanese at the Berlitz language school. Then a move to Rome to be assistant bureau chief. Image! Then Tokyo as AP bureau chief to give me experience and gravitas. Afterward, when he retired he would propose i take hs place. Onje problem, though. I felt he was not going to retire at mandatory retirmenet age. He was an old warhorse of great reputation for his determination. I felt he would groom me just far enough so he could point out to the AP board of directors just how chancy it was to turn the business over to me, then age 30 and risk my destroying the whole enterprise because of my lack of long experience. I felt Id never be ready for that job until over age 45 or so. To take the promotions on the basis of a promise of being world CEO was a suckers punch. The veteran newspaper owners and execs who comprised the AP board of directors would never be so bold or take such a risk. The boss who would promise me would be offered to stay on a few more years, maybe to age 70 and I'd have lost years of my life following a false dream. I bailed, bot a new job for a business publication and quadrupled my salary. I returned to Columbia, got my BA that disappeared when students took over the university i 1968 then my new wife and I went to silicon valley to law school. After graduating cum laud I opened and owned my own Silicon Valley law firm that was a success from day #1. Looking back, I think I was correct. The AP wold general manager who wanted to give me the keys to the entire operation when he turned age 65 I a now sure would have fought for longer on the job. Later when I worked for that business magazine, I traveled sometimes nationwide examining stores and how the companies ran them. Many were giant chains. I became an expert and even a speaker, once before 1500 executives who filled a major NYC hotel ballroom to hear me speak. I got two job offers because of my expertise at that magazine. One was to be editor of 'Business Week' magazine, now 'Bloomberg Business Week' a bible of business -- a top class magazine but that would require I stay in NYC with my new West Coast wife who hated living in NYC. The second was from a man named 'Mr. Sam' who ran a discount store chain in Bentonville, Arkansas. Mr. Sam often called me and we discussed his plans for locating stores and for how large store sizes might be to keep under the radar of industry giant (then) K-Mart. 'Mr. Sam' was Sam Walton. I turned down his offer to move to Bentonville, AR because I was sure I would not like Arkansas culture with its awful history of race relations. I also hated retailing though I was an expert I turned down Mr. Sam and the WalMart vice presidency he offered. If I had stayed with that work I would have become one of the US's most wealthy. I didn't really care about that. There's no prestige working for money at a job that makes you unhappy, and i did not have 'retail' in my blood. . I didn't believe boss AP boss Wesley Gallagher when he asked me to understudy him, as he mentored me to take over his work. I didn't believe he could walk away from a job that defined him. I also did not feel I could absorb or be taught by his retirement deadline the facts and the skills that were required. I could devote a major part of my life for a job that might never materialize, all based on a hope and a sponsorship that might not happen. So I did not believe Gallagher would produce the job as his successor, despite what I think were his good intentions. as retirement came closer, he would eventually shut me out to keep the reigns tight. He might possibly even assure my being fired to leave the AP board with no choice but to keep him on past age 65. when he offered me a chance to be elevated into his job. I didn't feel it was 'right'. I left AP, turned down editorship of Business Week Magazine' and told Sam Walton I did not want to live to in Bentonville, AK. or sell dry goods in discount stores no matter how well paid. I wanted to practice law. It was a great choice. My wife worked to put me through law school and I did the same for her, with never a question or objection. However law school and law practice changed her; eventually we split. I did not seriously take up photography until about 2004. Somehow all l my life's amazing experiences 'came into focus' then and those early images I had framed with such sweat and effort in my early '20s somehow became second nature to visualize and capture. Photography was 'fun' and it was 'easy' It also got me international recognition with 100s of millions of viewers on the Internet and friends worldwide. Surprisingly my work was popular; in the first six months' 1 million Internet viewers, soon blossomed into tens, then hundreds of millions viewers. This image came in 1969 during the time between Columbia's closure, my return from Vietnam and just prior to my being hired by Associated Press. Walking in San Francisco's downtown area I saw a sign in a store window 'Gypsy Fortuneteller' with an arrow and the notation 'one floor up'. With more than a little trepidation, I climbed those wooden stairs and somewhere in a room at the top was this unforgettable and imposing woman -- the Gypsy fortuneteller herself. I asked permission to make a few portraits and this is one of two or three images that resulted from the darkly lighted interior, captured on Tri-X with my Nikon and legendarily sharp f2 'auto' lens. I don't think this photo has been reproduced anywhere until now. i gave it to a pro photo finisher with other work in Seattle in the early 1990s, but the resulting print was 'far from outstanding'. I recently took the scanned copy and worked it up, dodging the the head so it was more easily visible and far less suspicious than in the only way I had ever seen this image. I felt the result 'sparkled' and showed something I had seen in this woman. What about the eyes? It was not makeup. Doctor friends and literature suggest it is a thyroid problem or a thyroid-related that probably was an auto-immune disorder. Such disorders are capable of darkening eye sock as here. I rejected the photo for over 50 years and did not see its potential. Here it is for the very first time I think. With a little rework to her face and head to lighten it, it has taken on a new place in my heart.I'm proud of this capture that long ago I gave up as 'not so good - a judgment i now reject. I like to redo older work to see what I might have missed. I can do so for the rest of my life, I think, if this is any indicator. john (John Crosley) (c) 1968-2020, all right reserved. No reproduction or other use without express prior written permission granted.

Photography:Paper on Paper

Artist Produced Limited Edition of:15

Size:36 W x 24.3 H x 0.1 D in

Delivery Time:Typically 5-7 business days for domestic shipments, 10-14 business days for international shipments.