A week ago, the photography world lost one of its icons,
and I lost a friend who had been part of my life for almost fifty years.
Jay Maisel.
There have been tributes coming from everywhere—
beautiful words, great stories, photographs, memories—
and they’re all well deserved.
But when you’ve known somebody for half a century,
you don’t really remember them in paragraphs.
You remember them like moments in time…snapshots from an album of life.
I became aware of Jay through his pictures.
The Time-Life book, Color.
Double-page spread magazine ads and visually compelling annual reports.
And then there was the real Jay—
the photographs he made because he had to,
because the world kept putting things in front of him
that he couldn’t leave alone.
All about the joy of seeing.
The first time I heard from him,
I was surprised to find out that Jay Maisel knew who I was.
He had seen some of my work in a photo annual
and sent me a note.
It said:
“Congratulations! You’re getting too good!
We have ways of dealing with guys like you!”
That was Jay.
A compliment with a loaded gun attached…
praise wrapped in a threat and tied with a bow!
I kept that note.
We met soon afterward,
and somehow that meeting stretched into fifty years.
Jay was a great photographer.
A teacher.
A mentor.
A storyteller.
A collector of things nobody else would think to collect.
And, for me, he was something more complicated and more important.
He was the older brother I never had.
He gave me advice when I wanted it
and advice when I didn’t.
He gave me encouragement
and he gave me shit.
Like a glutton for punishment, I loved it!
But underneath the New York bluster,
the booming voice, the profanity, the jokes,
there was this enormous generosity.
Jay had an appetite for life.
He wanted to see everything.
He wanted to know everybody.
He wanted to hear the story,
take the picture,
buy the object,
smoke the cigar,
eat the meal,
and then tell you why you were doing it wrong.
When my children were young,
Jay, L.A. and Amanda would invite my family to New York
where we always stayed at The Bank.
My kids grew up believing that everybody in New York
owned a building.
And thanks to Jay,
they also learned that the word “fuck”
could be used as a noun, a verb, an adjective, an adverb,
and apparently several other parts of speech
that Webster never got around to explaining.
But that was Jay.
He made life bigger.
And he made photography bigger.
He taught us that light mattered.
That color mattered.
That gesture mattered.
But mostly, he taught us to pay attention.
Because Jay never just looked at things.
He went after them.
He saw the strange little collision of light and shadow,
the person who wandered into the frame at exactly the wrong moment,
which was usually exactly the right moment,
the things that other photographers might walk past
because they were too busy looking for something important.
Jay understood that the ordinary world
was already full of miracles.
You just had to be awake for them.
That’s what I see in his photographs now.
or any of the thousands of photographs he made.
I see a man who refused to stop being curious.
And maybe that is the greatest thing a photographer can do.
Stay curious.
Stay open.
Keep looking.
Even when it begins to rain or everybody else has gone home.
There are photographers who make beautiful pictures.
There are photographers who change photography.
And then, every once in a while,
there is somebody who changes the way you look at the world.
Jay was one of those people.
If photography had a Mount Rushmore,
Jay would probably be standing there in the middle,
complaining that the other three guys
weren’t getting enough light.
I was fortunate enough to honor him twice,
when he asked me to give his induction speeches
for the Lucie Lifetime Achievement Award
and later, the International Photography Hall of Fame.
Those were great honors.
But the real honor was simpler.
Being his friend.
Sharing a meal.
Sharing a cigar.
And then there were the phone calls and FaceTimes.
There was always a story.
Always a laugh.
Always something you didn’t see coming.
And then came the last one.
Jay’s name appeared on my phone.
I looked at the phone.
And I was afraid to answer, thinking the worst.
Then I heard laughter in the background.
Voices.
Amanda (his pride and joy who matched his wit), Jeffrey(assistant extraordinaire) and L.A. (a woman destined for sainthood!)
And finally Jay.
“Hey man, well I’m on my way out… and I actually feel like this is the best death I’ve ever had!”
Of course it was.
Who else could say that?
Who else could be dying
and somehow make everybody else laugh?
Who else could spend a lifetime teaching us how to see
and then, at the very end,
teach us one more thing:
Don’t take the ending too seriously.
Jay, you were one of a kind.
You were a hell of a photographer.
A hell of a teacher.
And you were, without question,
one hell of a character.
I was lucky to know you.
Lucky to learn from you.
Lucky to laugh with you.
And lucky enough to call you my friend.
I was blessed.
I will never forget that call.
Which like all our calls… always ended with us saying to each other,
“I love you, man!”
