Tuesday night I went to Washtenaw Community College to hear a talk by a photographer. My friend and photo buddy, Bev, went with me. We both enjoyed his talk very much.
Peter Turnley calls himself a photo journalist. He’s been a photographer for over 30 years and has visited over 90 countries. His photographs have been on over 40 covers of Newsweek. He talked for about an hour and a half in the dark while showing some of his photographs (most of which can also be seen on his website http://www.peterturnley.com/index.html). He’s a good speaker and seems like a regular guy who has had some, as he would call them, lucky breaks. He spoke confidently but not arrogantly to a crowd of a couple of hundred people. It was a mixed crowd with lots of WCC students and a good number of older people. Bev and I figured we were right smack dab in the middle of the demographic group. When the slide show was done he took questions for a half and hour. He’s a good story teller and it’s amazing he remembers the details of places and dates he’s been. He lives in NYC now but lived for a good number of the last 30 years in Paris.
He, his stories and mostly his photographs inspired me to give taking photos of people a try!