It is a rare and exhilarating experience for a photographer to capture a moment in history that then becomes imprinted on the national consciousness. The euphoric V-J Day kiss between sailor and nurse in Times Square. An astronaut’s ticker-tape parade. Babe Ruth making a final appearance at Yankee Stadium. These are images that have inspired me and guided me through a 48-year career in photography.

But less monumental scenes have shaped my eye, too: a group of stray cats huddled over a New York manhole on a bitter winter day; a sea of barely clad humanity crowded onto Coney Island; Eleanor Roosevelt alone, carrying a suitcase.

Over the next 12 weeks I will examine some of these images I cherish most – ones big and small in scope, but all enormous influences on my work. In some cases I will revisit the scene of a photo; in others I’ll discuss the story behind the image and why it proved so affecting to me. In all I hope to convey why certain photographs leave a lasting impression on my psyche.

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Caption for the photo above:

It was Oct. 13, 1939, and part of National Doughnut Dunking Week. How to celebrate? Shipwreck Kelly, who had set a world record for perching atop a flagpole for seven weeks on the Steel Pier of Atlantic City in the summer of 1930, had an idea. I can imagine the publicist’s excited description: We’ll get him on the Chanin Building, 54 stories over East 42nd Street, at Lexington Avenue, and we’ll get someone to dunk 13 doughnuts into a coffee cup and feed them to Kelly while he’s standing on his head! The Chrysler Building is at left and the old Third Avenue El at the top. Charles Hoff, a photographer for The Daily News, got the picture from a ledge above.

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