The Art World and the World Wide Web

went down and did the project, a plexiglass sculpture in the
shape of a red “O” from a Mobile sign, a gas station sign—just
the “O” on its side, tilted on a 2 x 4 laid on the floor with
a fluorescent light behind it. And they couldn’t get a good
balance between the object and the environment, so I figured
out how to do that. It was challenging.
I like that story a lot because it goes back to your father’s influence
on you in terms of solving technical problems.
You’re right. It was rewarding work, and that fact is what had
me gravitating toward doing professional photography for the
art world—the work was interesting and challenging, not at
all routine.
It wasn’t long before you became known as the go-to guy for
difficult shoots. Can you give me an example of a recent assignment
that was both technically challenging and rewarding for you as a
photographer?
I was challenged recently to produce a photo of an artist’s
studio floor. Now, he has this great studio in Long Island City,
and we’d shoot all his paintings out there where he paints.
The studio is about 24’ x 30’—that’s one room in a gigantic
10,000 square foot building that’s like a giant warehouse. The
studio is basically covered with plywood panels, 4’ x 8’ sheets
of plywood that are seamed with autobody Bondo, like a
grout almost, and it’s got cigarettes and paint and all kinds of
blots and stuff ground into the surfaces. And he wanted to
create a photo of the floor that was large enough so he could
create literally a 1:1 reproduction in scale of his floor. Now,
there’s no camera, even if you split it up into six or eight images,
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