In your photo essay on the Poughkeepsie Railroad Bridge Fire in 1974 and in your reflection upon the end of the steam era in Germany’s Hof Mine, you mentioned that you were “in the right place at the right time.” How much of that decisive click relies on luck?

This is a multi-faceted question with more than one answer. For the bridge photos, being in the right place at the right time didn’t mean that the photos that I shot happened easily. From the highway to the top of the bridge required strong local knowledge of where the bridge came out on to grade and how to get there. Had there been a police presence or fire marshal at the east end of the bridge where I parked, I would not have gotten onto the bridge to get the images from the middle of the fight. Still, I could have been arrested at any point after making the decision to walk out onto the structure, since I was not technically a journalist working for a paper. When I was “in the mix,” as we say, the Fire Captain in charge was too busy to involve himself with my being there. He just said, “Stay out of the way.” I shot for about twenty minutes and left. By the time I was back on the highway, most of the fire was already contained.

The Hof photos “happened” because an uncle who was just retired from the DB, knowing of my interest in steam, told me that I had to go to Hof without explaining why. I felt it was an important enough venture to start out the next day, arriving in Hof by train late that evening. Getting permission did not come easily and I could have given up, leaving with only a few photos of steam engines taken from the vanatge point of any railfan. Had it not been for a curious railway poilceman’s intervention, who saw me enter and retreat from the superintendant’s office rather quickly, I probably would not have gotten the images that I finally came away with.

You have a perspicacious eye for capturing poignant portraits of working class people. How do you avoid stereotyping?

I think this is answered by the fact that I come from a working class background. My father worked in a printing plant as a laborer and my grandfather was a machinist for the New York Central Railroad. When looking at the railroad workers in particular, I have studied the photography of others who have documented this subject — O’Winston Link, David Plowden, Frank Barry, John Gruber and others whose work I admire. My photo of Kevin McGarvey, “The Engineer,” is an image that I hope — if I’m ever remembered at all for my photography — will be the one that I’m most identified with. Kevin was more than a photo-subject. He became a friend.

Another photographer that I admire is August Sander who took photos of everyday people in their living environments. I do portraits of people that I come in contact with, be they people that I know or strangers… it doesn’t matter. I first take an interest in them on a personal level. I’m genuinely interested in people and their jobs, their passions and sensibilities.

In the field, I try to keep things simple. I rarely change lenses, and prefer to use wider angle lenses for much of my work. I’ll often only take one camera on a photo excursion. I’m amused by photographers who have two or three cameras dangling from their necks, with lenses that seem to hit the ground! Long lenses create some great effects, and I appreciate those images; but I have always wanted to include the human side of railroading in my work, not just the motive power. While I enjoy the chase of an excursion train as much as the next guy, my preference is the image of the crew getting steam up and tinkering around the engine early in the morning; or a photo of a freight conductor hanging from a gondola switching out cars on a factory siding. That’s why you’ll see few roster shots from me and lots of images of railroad workers going about their jobs. Like Kertész, I’m looking for “the decisive moment.”

What makes portraits intimate (or not)?

I have photographed people from time to time on a freelance assignment. Often it was only a job and the photo, let’s say of a local politician, reflected my disinterest… They were at most snapshots. But a photo like the ones taken here of local shop owners and local workers, Dave Knapp in his paint and glass store, “Izzy” Stone (who likes to call himself a ‘Horologist’), and Michaelangelo Aquaviva (local barber and my barber as a child) — these are people whom I have a history with. We have a connection to one another, and that makes all the dfference.

From the New York Grand Central Terminal to the Hudson Valley and other landscapes, you’ve approached various places in terms of memories and chronology. How do you capture the spirit of a place?

I’ve spent a lot of time in Grand Central Terminal… since I was about five years old, with my grandfather. Over the years, unless you have no soul, the spirt of a place like the Grand Central Terminal takes into itself a part of you. When you photograph these places that are so familiar, I think that your eye frames the image with consideration for all of the past visualization that has occured.

While you’ve mentioned that you “lost” numerous images when working as a TV cameraman because of the job’s demands, do you also think that this background helps you in your present sensitivities towards fleeting images that could be dramatically depicted on a still surface?

Absolutely. I think that the TV camera’s viewfinder was an unconsious “learning tool”… Similar to the small books that you can buy in novelty stores where you have a still image on every page, slightly different than the one from the page before. When you flip the pages, the images move. It is the same thing with the electronic camera in which you can freeze the image. Today, with an inexpensive video camera like the one that we bought our daughter Maya for Christmas, it can be set to shoot video and yet also capture a still frame photo.

What does photography instill in you that roving camera work does not?

With still photography — using film, developing it, and making the photographic print — it is a whole process. The darkroom is a magical place for me. The development of the film is drudgery; once I have a negative, it is about the art of printing, burning and dodging, flashing the print if need be; sometimes with the negative, sometimes without. All of these “manipulations” work towards producing a desired effect in the final image. It’s true that nowadays, all of this can also be done digitally in Photoshop, and some photographers might feel the same about prints done digitally. The darkroom print as it appears faintly in the developer, becoming more and more recognizable as the image photographed, cannot however, be duplicated by any electronic device.

How has your photography evolved since your retirement as a cameraman?

Since my retirement from broadcasting, I have much more time to spend on my photography. Most days after I’ve taken my daughter to school, I’m free to do what I want with little time constraints. Since I’m not getting up for work, or needing to go to bed at a specific hour, I can work in the darkroom until 1, 2 or 3 a.m. and not “pay the consequences.” While much of my work now is digital, I have been looking at older work (film) and re-printing selected images. I’ve had shows that include new as well as older work. Recently a good friend gave me two canon F-1 camera bodies and an assortment of lenses that I’m starting to use. I also want to experiment with some pinhole cameras, Holga panoramic cameras and larger format (4 x 5) …

Because of Parkinson’s Disease, I retired from broadcasting. Coping with Parkinson’s can be difficult, as you imagine, when it comes to photography as well: changing the lens, preparing the prints in the darkroom … all these technical aspects of working with the camera require precision, in some way or another. I just cope with it and do my very best to enjoy every aspect of the entire working process. I have no choice.

Are there aesthetic and ethical choices that you exercise during the process of creating photos?

Hmmmm… Yes.

If I were to photograph a KKK member, it would most likely not be a flattering photo. I shot an interview, one on one (with a producer) with Desmond TuTu on his first trip to New York City. (It was one of those times in my work when I overrode the still camera). As I admired TuTu greatly, I took the time to light him as best I could in the small church office at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem.

Honoré Daumier once said, “Photography described everything and explained nothing.” Given that you often adopt a documentary approach, would you agree?

A photograph can show minute details yet be manipulated in such a way as to leave out imagery that might or might not have relevance to the viewer. Photographs are only as honest as those who take them.

What artists, photographers or writers inspire and interest you continually? Why?

I’ve mentioned a few already. But let me say more: I’m probably most inspired by David Plowden’s work. His subject matter — trains, railroads, bridges, the vanishing America — as seen in “A Handful of Dust” is important imagery of this country. Jim Shaughnessy’s photographs are composed with a wonderful formal elegance. I’m also inspired by the Hudson River School of painters: Thomas Cole, Asher B. Durrand, Jasper Francis Cropsy… also Monet, Rembrandt and Van Gogh…