“Over the years, she [my mother] always encouraged me in the arts. She actually worked at an art museum when we were kids. I took classes there. She was the one that, when we'd go to the store and I would have a pack of eight pastels, she'd say, "No, get the 24-pack." She was always encouraging me to get the best materials, which was really awesome.” YearsArtKidsMotherClassMaterialsEightStoresMuseumsPacksPastelReally Awesome Author:Jeff Vespa
“We were little children, four or five years old, but they were all around the house and they made us look epic, like we were part of some story being told. My mom would have this woman come to our house and take photos of us. She did a photo book of us as well when I was one. I still have it.” YearsWellsLooksChildrenLittlesMadeStillsBookStoriesHouseFiveFourMomMy MomFive YearsEpicFive Year Olds Author:Jeff Vespa
“The Canon AE1 - a fully manual camera. [My mother] had a 50mm, which is a standard lens, and then I got a 28mm. Then I started a little punk magazine, a zine, when I was 14 or 15 years old. I was shooting my friends skateboarding and it was the beginning of the Macintosh. We wouldn't do layouts on the computer; we would pick the font and then type up a paragraph and then print it out and cut it up and put it in a little mock-up and Xerox it.” YearsLittlesMotherCuttingTypeComputerStandardsPicksMy FriendsCamerasMagazinesShootingPrintPunkLensesMockParagraphManualsCanonSkateboardingMacintoshLayoutFontsXeroxZines Author:Jeff Vespa
“I never went to school for that. In high school we had photography, which was great. That was another moment of discovery. I had a great teacher - I can't even remember her name now. I ended up going to boarding school for my last high school years and they had a dark room there. Of course there was curfew; you were supposed to be in bed at a certain time. But I would sneak out and sneak into the dark room and work all night.” YearsI CanMomentsSchoolLastsRememberNightCertainCoursesNamesDarkRoomsTeacherBedPhotographyHigh SchoolDiscoverySupposed To BeAll NightGreat TeacherSneakDark RoomCurfewSchool Years Author:Jeff Vespa
“My teacher introduced me to this photographer Eugène Atget. He was a French photographer in the late 1800s up until 1927 in Paris. He didn't consider himself an artist, but he was probably one of the artists of the 20th century. This guy documented all of Paris during those years. It's unbelievable. The books are phenomenal. The Museum of Modern Art has all his stuff now and [American photographer] Berenice Abbott saved his work. Not very much is known about his life, but the work is unreal and it totally spoke to me. He was the only artist for a number of years that I cared about at all.” YearsArtBookArtistGuyStuffNumbersKnownTeacherModernCenturyLatePhotographerSavedParisSpokesMuseums20th CenturyUnbelievableThis GuyUnrealPhenomenalModern Art Author:Jeff Vespa
“A lot of people have done that over the years. Many of the agencies today were started by photographers. It's a normal progression. It wasn't some crazy idea, it was just, "Can we start our own agency? Can we do this?"” PeopleYearsIdeasDoneTodayCrazyNormalPhotographerAgencyProgressionCrazy Ideas Author:Jeff Vespa
“I ended up meeting this guy Stefan Simchowitz, who produced Requiem for a Dream and also went to AFI. I randomly met him in Cannes. By September of 2000, we had made a deal with this company that he was working with. They merged with us and in January of 2001, we opened WireImage. It was pretty crazy because I only started shooting celebrity stuff in 1998 - literally two and a half years later, I'm opening this company.” YearsMadeTwoDreamGuyStuffDealsHalfCompanyCrazyMetsMeetingsOpeningShootingSeptemberThis GuyJanuaryHalf A YearCannesRequiemRequiem For A Dream Author:Jeff Vespa
