i remember shooting for some los angeles lifestyle magazine a few ... probably more ... years ago. it was at the bel air hotel ... one of the most beautiful hotels we have here. doesn't feel like a hotel. it rather feels like a big sprawling private home.
be that as it may i remember making a photo with the mp. a tallish man says "that's a beautiful camera; i'm glad to see people still use them." i told him i prefer using this camera more than anything that was hanging from my shoulders. he started a sentence "... when they gave me my leicas..."
i looked puzzled and said, "who are you??" i knew leica doesn't just "give" cameras to just anyone.
"i'm william claxton."
of course, i knew his work. we spent the next 30-or-so minutes talking about photography and black and white photos.
skip forward to last week when our friend john gave us a private tour of the kemper art museum in st. louis. along with some of the "donkey work" which you'll always find in museums j and i fell in love with this photo...
we looked at the photographer's name ... and it was william claxton although when i first met him and subsequent meetings ... he said to call him bill.
in the l.a. times i saw something that was the kind of sad ironic one really hopes to never see...
first it was a photo of bill ...
and then it was a story about his death.
when i saw the photo of the hot dog stand ... more than really wanting that for our walls ... i wanted to talk to bill again. i very much enjoyed our conversations.
i respect photographers who use or used one camera and available light for the biggest percentage of their body of work.
i wish peggy, his wife, as much peace as possible. i feel for her.
timing is an odd thing.
sad that the world is less ... one amazing leica photographer.
i'll keep bill in mind when i make my next thwaap.
hope you all had an amazing weekend; i don't even remember mine.
cheers from the chilly and breezy l.a.
p.s., on a happier note ... i think we're gonna get new mac book pros tomorrow! lets hope!
Rest in peace. My girlfriend showed me this article! :(
Posted by: Arthur Mola | 13 October 2008 at 11:54 AM
It's easy to see why you fell in love with that photo. A personal loss for those who knew and loved him and a collective loss for those who loved his work.
Posted by: Elinor | 13 October 2008 at 11:54 AM
Im sorry to say, i didnt know his work, but from what you say, he will be sorely missed by all of us who never had the pleasure of knowing him, and even more by those who did.
Im going to spend a while looking at his work.
Posted by: Scott | 13 October 2008 at 12:11 PM
Great photo of him, also checked his website http://www.williamclaxton.com - there's some awsome shots.
Posted by: Thorsten Overgaard | 13 October 2008 at 12:36 PM
that hot dog stand shot is just a beautiful moment, and when the world is robbed of a person who can capture such beauty to share, it's very sad indeed.
Posted by: Christian Rollinson | 13 October 2008 at 02:04 PM
peggy moffitt has a blog but it's by invite only
he seemed to be a genuine nice guy
Posted by: peter | 13 October 2008 at 03:17 PM
beautiful beautiful beautiful photo.....I've never heard of william claxton before and I think that made it so much better to try to look at that picture objectively and it truly is a gorgeous photo. Well, he's somewhere else now, rolling around in a pit full of leica M's so I think he's doing alright ;D
Posted by: dzu | 13 October 2008 at 05:59 PM
RIP another great photographer
Posted by: 2REP | 13 October 2008 at 06:26 PM
That is a lovely shot, I'm going to go and spend a while on his site (thanks Thorsten for posting the link). I've been wanting to do some street photography before and after my nightclub shooting on weekends and will certainly (finally) give it a go. It's very hard to be discrete shooting with the D3 so I think I'll start off just a short jump from the police beat for safety. The drunks in the area do rather like to punch on and I took shots for the police last weekend.
What do you do with your old Macbook when you upgrade? Do you recycle it or does it become an upgrade for B?
I'll be looking into laptop options in the next few months as well, required to fit into a business plan with a lot of work shooting on the road. I hope the new Macbook does come with an N Wireless connection instead of G.
Posted by: Mark Greenmantle | 13 October 2008 at 06:52 PM
Great story... but sad outcome. I'm glad you posted that shot he took, it kind of gives me a better idea of who he really was.
Posted by: Rastislav | 13 October 2008 at 09:47 PM
How sad. I knew his art, loved his photos of Chet Baker and McQueen.
I did not know that the movie "Jazz Seen" is about him (have the OST, by chance, because I like the guy who did the OST). Now I will watch it...
Posted by: zabong | 14 October 2008 at 08:23 AM
that photos is absolutely beautiful. a very sad thing...
Posted by: meredith | 16 October 2008 at 04:40 PM
His work was an inspiration to me at Uni.
I had the book "Jazz" by Mervyn Cooke when I was trying to learn more about the history of my favourite movement and the photos within it were great at firing my imagination. Some, of course, were classics by him, and it got me doing a lot of reading up about his work and life online.
Doing Jazz and Blues and also Folk gigs is heaven to me, because you can really focus on that intimacy and capture soul as you feel it being absorbed into you. Not to mention the fact that it gave some really hot results on my OM-1n. This is why Claxton became the focus of my personal dissertation (which I titled "Photography is Jazz for the Eye"), not because it got me doing the gigs - I already loved it - but because he made me realise that I was part of a long and rich tradition which should not be allowed to die out. Not that I compare in the slightest... Leica have never had anything to do with me ;)
Rich*****
Posted by: Rich Spencer | 19 October 2008 at 04:07 PM