On Tuesday, the Magnum photographer and filmmaker Elliott Erwitt, 82, will receive the Infinity Award for Lifetime Achievement from the International Center of Photography, which will exhibit his favorite pictures as “Personal Best,” beginning May 20. For the occasion, he agreed to let his son Misha Erwitt, a photographer himself, present him with a list of questions that family members have long wanted to ask.

Misha: You’re getting the lifetime achievement award.

Elliott: Yes.

Misha: Does that mean you’re done?

Elliott: Yeah, you can say that’s what you get for longevity.

Misha: Are you going to assume your other identity and continue as Mr. Solidor? [André S. Solidor is Mr. Erwitt’s artistic alter ego.]

Elliott: I might. They made a film of Solidor that’s going to be shown at the event. It’s quite scandalous. In one of them, I’m dressed as a priest and I have a naked woman on my lap while being interviewed. I don’t know if they’ll use it, but they shot it.

Misha: I know you don’t like to speak about what you do. And when you do, you keep it pretty short and succinct. It’s a lifetime achievement award and I guess part of your achievement is us. So I asked all my siblings to give me a question to ask you.

Elliott: O.K. Go on. Shoot.

Asa Mathat for EG Conference

Misha: We can start with Amelia. The picture she asks about is the one of the newly-married couple sitting on a bumper of a car, with a sign that says: “She got me this morning, but I’ll get her tonight.” [Slide 3.] She wants to know what the back story is. Did you attend that wedding? Did you know these people? Are those two on the car the actual couple?

Elliott: No, I was just driving somewhere — it was in New England I think, New Hampshire — and I came on the scene. I just stopped the car — it was obviously a wedding party — and I took their picture, got back in the car and left. I did not attend the wedding. I don’t know these people. I never saw them before. I’m certain that I’ll never see them again. And nobody sued me. So that was good.

Misha: David asks: What was the most interesting shoot or subject you ever had to photograph? And what’s your favorite locale to work?

Elliott: The most interesting one is the one that is the next one, I hope. Which is going to take place in Scotland in the months of June and August. I know it’s going to be the best one, even though I haven’t done it yet.

Misha: What is it?

Elliott: I’m going to be doing an extended story about Scotland and whiskey. Single malt whiskey.

Misha: I guess you’ll be able to sample some too?

Elliott: I look forward to sampling some. What was the other part?

Misha: What is your favorite locale to work?

Elliott: So far it’s been Ireland and Brazil. But I’m quite prepared to like another place as well.

Misha: Let’s move on to Ellen. In terms of your career, if you had to do it over again — what, if anything, would you do differently?

Elliott: I would be careful in selecting my publisher and I would read the contracts very carefully. I’m pretty satisfied with what I’ve done so far and I have no complaints.

Misha: And in relation to your family?

Elliott: I wish maybe that my marriages had been more successful.

Misha: She goes on to ask: Of the varied assignments that you have had as a photojournalist, what stands out in your mind as a pivotal moment in your career, and as a moment in history?

Elliott: I would say that assignments were never a terribly important part of my photographic work.

Misha: But they did get you to where you took your pictures.

Elliott: Yeah, but the assignments were not as significant as the pictures I took for my own pleasure, usually on the back of assignments. The assignments took me to places where I did my work. I then stayed on for my own hobby.

Misha: Jennifer asks: You have been traveling around the world with a camera for almost seven decades. Do you still see pictures all around you? Or do you ever get tired of noticing?

Elliott: Noticing possible pictures — with or without carrying a camera — is fundamental to any working photographer. I would never get tired of noticing, although I would probably not be moved to take pictures that repeat and repeat.

Misha: Sasha would like to know the back story to this picture. [“Robert and Mary Frank,” Slide 15.]

Elliott: That picture was taken in 1952 while I was still doing my military service in the U.S. Army while stationed in Europe. These were friends of mine living in Spain that I visited during a furlough. During my time in the Army, I took some of my better freelance pictures and did not have to worry about paying the rent.

Misha: You took a photograph in 1955 of our mother cooking dinner, her back to the camera. She has Ellen, who’s crying, in one arm and she’s reaching into the oven with the other. I’m sitting behind them in a high chair and there’s another kid standing, watching.

Elliott Erwitt

What’s the back story to that photo? Also, you were traveling all over the world, on the road constantly. What was it like to come home from an exotic locale to a house full of screaming kids?

Elliott: There is no story behind that photo, just a moment of the normal chaos of a family with numerous children. I loved coming back home to screaming children.

Misha: Is there a favorite assignment?

Elliott: I would say that a favorite assignment, maybe not the favorite assignment, was an assignment for Time Inc. to do a book on Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia during their bad days. It was a wonderful assignment because there was no brief. I was just free to do anything.

Misha: Do you have a favorite picture of yours?

Elliott: I have a few pictures that I like, but I hope I haven’t taken my favorite pictures yet.

Misha: Is there anything out there that really makes you happy or proud knowing that you’ve done it, that you have it, after all these years?

Elliott: You can say that my pictures are like my children and I don’t have a favorite.

Misha: Who’s your favorite photographer, living or dead?

Elliott: The gold standard of photography remains, as it has always been, Henri Cartier-Bresson.

Misha: Do you have a favorite picture of his?

Elliott: Yes, I do. It’s a picture that sort of got me started in photography. It’s a picture that’s hard to describe in words. It’s a picture he took in 1932 at a railway station.

Misha: The one with the lines from a concrete overpass converging with the rails below and two people in the frame? [“The Quai St. Bernard, near the Gare d’Austerlitz train station.”]

Elliott: Yes

Misha: What was it about that photo that made you want to go out and take pictures? Could you elaborate a little about Cartier-Bresson’s photos and how they influenced your interest in photography? Was he a mentor like [Robert] Capa?

Elliott: The picture seemed evocative and emotional. Also, a simple observation was all that it took to produce it. I thought, if one could make a living out of doing such pictures, that would be desirable. Capa was [a mentor] in that he liked the pictures I showed him and thought I might be a useful addition to the nascent agency Magnum.

Misha Erwitt

Misha: How about Magnum? How did you first get invited?

Elliott: I was invited before being drafted into the army in 1951. I met Robert Capa, who was interested in me and then promised that he would take me in when I got out.

Misha: How did your meeting with Capa come about? How did he notice you?

Elliott: I went around with my portfolio. I left Los Angeles, Hollywood, where I was living, and tried to start my career. During my rounds, I met Roy Stryker, formerly from the Farm Security Administration, [Edward] Steichen at the Museum of Modern Art and Robert Capa. I kept in touch with Magnum during my service. At that time it was a very small agency, essentially run by Capa. It was not quite as formal as it’s become.

Misha: What has it become?

Elliott: It’s become very big and varied and it has followed the market as well as it could. It couldn’t be more diverse. In the old days, it was rather specific and editorially oriented to magazines, which no longer exist in any reasonable form for photography — or real photography.

Misha: You took a very moving photo of Capa’s mother at his grave after he was killed in 1954. [Slide 14.] What was the impact on you when he died? What was the impact on Magnum?

Elliott: Julia Capa was a friend. On occasion, I would drive her to Armonk to visit her son’s grave. Everyone at Magnum was devastated by the death of Robert Capa and, within days, by the death of Werner Bischof and, within months, David Seymour. It is a miracle that the new Magnum agency did not collapse as a result. But the agency survived as a kind of testimony to the sense of mission and energy of the remaining members, whose guiding principle was an individual humanistic view of the world through photography — and the retention of our copyright.

Misha: You’re 82 now.

Elliott: I am.

Misha: And you’re still working.

Elliott: I’ve never worked harder than now.

Misha: How do you see the future of photography? Business is bad and a lot of photographers aren’t working.

Elliott: It depends on the market. Publications will not come out with blank pages. They have to be filled. What do I see as the future of photography?

Misha: Yes, with digital.

Elliott: I see it as the future of photography. From my personal viewpoint, there is professional on the one side — which is not terribly interesting — and amateur on the other side, which is very interesting. I see it as a day job and as a hobby. But that’s my personal view; that’s how I’ve conducted my life — my photographic life, in any case, since the very beginning.

Misha: The playing field seems to have changed. Everybody who owns a cellphone is a photographer now. Do you think that’s going to change things?

“Photography is not brain surgery. It’s not that complicated. It’s easier now than it was before, but before it wasn’t that hard. It was reasonably easy. It’s not the ease; it’s what you do and how you do it and how you construct your life and your vision.” — Elliott Erwitt

Elliott: No, everybody is a photographer and that’s going to continue to be. It’s very seductive. But by the same token, everybody who has pencil is not necessarily a fine writer. It doesn’t mean you really have to know that much to get a picture. I mean, photography is not brain surgery. It’s not that complicated. It’s easier now than it was before, but before it wasn’t that hard. It was reasonably easy. It’s not the ease; it’s what you do and how you do it and how you construct your life and your vision.

Misha: Do you have any advice for anybody trying to start out now to be a photographer?

Elliott: Yes, I have advice. My advice is to be an heir and do it on the side.

Misha: There aren’t as many jobs out there for photographers right now. Certainly folks who’ve been around as long as you have aren’t doing as much as you are. As long as I’ve been your son, you’ve been as busy as busy can be. I’m sure it’s a personal discipline. I know even when you’re not working for someone, you are always working.

Elliott: Yeah. I think it’s important to emphasize that photography is both my profession and my hobby. I use the same tools, so that’s rather convenient. I’m quite hot about my hobby, so I do it.

Misha: How about your movies?

Elliott: Let me see. In the 80s, I made 18 films for Home Box Office, but when they changed the people in charge, I found it too disagreeable to work there and I went back to my day job.

Misha: So now if someone were to drop a film project in your lap, would you consider it?

Elliott: No one’s going to drop something in my lap because I’m not looking for it. I made a couple of films which will be on view during the exhibition. These are films that I made on my own.

Misha: You mean “Beauty Knows No Pain” and “Red White and Bluegrass”?

Elliott: Yes. And a little profile on Dustin Hoffman.

Misha: What’s important to you now?

Elliott: The important thing is management of time, because there’s so much going around. There’s so many things happening that take your concentration away from things that you want to be doing. What I want to be doing is taking pictures. Management of time becomes more complicated as your photographic life gets complicated.

Misha: Who curated the show at the I.C.P.?

Elliott: Brian Wallis organized the show, which is essentially the same show that was at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris, which broke all attendance records.

Misha: Maybe you can do the same here.

Elliott: Maybe. Boy, you should see the stuff that they’re doing: the T-shirts, the buttons, the cards, the cups, the bags. They came over and showed me. I mean, it’s unbelievable.

Misha: Are there still un-found pictures in your archive? I know you’ve been combing everything that you’ve done for quite some time. Are there still some rocks to look under?

Elliott: Yes. I have two books that I’m working on that are mostly from pictures that I haven’t organized before. Three, actually. There’s one coming out this fall called “ Sequentially Yours.” It’s all sequence pictures. I have a book about children that’s going to come out and I’m working on my color book for next year.

Misha: Your which book?

Elliott: Color.

Misha: Color?

Elliott: Yes.

Misha: Well, that’s a departure, isn’t it?

Elliott: It is. I seldom publish color pictures because they’re mostly pictures that I did professionally.

Misha: How many books have you put out?

Elliott: We counted 40 for the show, but we’re only going to show about 15 or so.

Misha: You covered Obama’s inauguration. What can you tell me about that? I know you’ve done a lot of inaugurations in your time. What was different about this one? Is there anything you can say that differentiates it from the others?

Elliott: I got one picture that I like out of it. I thought that was unusual. It was very exciting. It’s one of the great privileges of my profession to witness historical events and to go right into them and experience them. It’s one of the great rewards of the profession.

Elliott Erwitt

Misha: And this from someone who started as the school photographer for Hollywood High?

Elliott: O.K., you can say that.

Misha: I know that your first serious camera was a Rolleiflex, but do you remember what your first camera was?

Elliott: A glass-plate camera that I bought for five bucks.

Misha: Do you still have it?

Elliott: Nope. Don’t know what happened to it.

Misha: Well, that should about do it.

Elliott: I think you got enough for a lot.

Misha: Thanks, Pop.