Let’s start with a doozy: Why do you love photography?
AWS: This is a good question. My love for photography seems to have happened organically. My earliest influence of fine art was from my grandmother who studied at Parsons in NY in the late 30’s and was a portrait artist in the south. Art was in my DNA, whether I realized it or not. I studied art history which is simply a study of images and stories of artists and architecture. It was not until I saw Helen Levitt’s retrospective at the SF Museum of Modern Art in 1991 that I fell in love with the medium. This exhibition opened my eyes to the complexity of photography expressed both by her intimacy and understanding of place, and her raw observations of daily life explored in streets of New York City in the 40’s and 50’s. To this day, Levitt remains a favorite of mine.
BW: I love how it is a completely versatile medium. A traditional photograph can look quite striking in a modern space and a more modern image can blend seamlessly and surprisingly into a more traditional room. And nothing can freshen a staid interior like a fabulous photograph.
