Michael Werner interviews Chip Simone for Two Way Lens, interviews with contemporary photographers.
MW: What inspired you to start taking photographs, and what have been some of the most important milestones in your career up until now?
CS: I've been doing photography for about a half century and over the years many things inspired me. Television was probably my first real visual influence. In 1950, when I was five years old, we got the first TV set in our neighborhood. I grew up watching black and white images on a small glass screen. Today, deep into my sixth decade, I am still mesmerized by some of the things that I see on a small glass screen.
I found a broken 1930's camera that had a two piece pop-up viewfinder. I carried it with me everywhere and looked at everything through it. It quickly became my window onto a private world. By Junior High I was carrying a 35mm camera with me every day, working candidly by available light, imagining I was Alfred Eisenstaedt on assignment for LIFE. That was my first photo dream, along with owning a Leica. Read the full article.
