Even though 2020 has been a hectic year, I was still able to make it out to PHOTO LA this year. I definitely saw some great photographs there, and even better still I found lots of images to photograph myself. I have been writing volumes for this blog the last few days so I will keep this post simple, and for the most part let my photographs do the talking with the exception of one image.
William Karl Valentine with Mel Etherton by Danny Lyon print - Photo LA 2020 - Santa Monica CA 2-2-20
I met Mel in Tucson in January when I was out for the Legacies of LIGHT symposium in Tucson. Her Husband, Terry, founded Etherton Gallery and I am featuring the gallery in another post here in my blog. To be specific I actually met Mel in Mary Virginia Swanson’s kitchen at a party after the symposium Sunday afternoon as someone was photographing her hair (true story, cool party). Anyways, at PHOTO LA I see Mel at the Etherton Gallery booth and I start a conversation with her, eventually asking her which print is her favorite. Without hesitation she pointed to this Danny Lyon print behind us in the photo , a photograph which is one of my favorites. After we talked about how great Danny’s work is she explained her connection to this particular image. She said they were at a Paris Photo LA event in 2014 when Brad Pitt came by their gallery space which was featuring Danny Lyon. She said Terry was busy with a client or off somewhere conducting business so she talked to Brad and basically sold him the print. The sale of the print made several news outlets and she got to tease Terry about it after that she was the one who closed the deal with Brad Pitt. Epic story, so happy she shared that with me.
So as for the rest of the PHOTO LA 2020 Experience I am just going to post a gallery and let the reader plow through some images.
