Photographer Larry Fink Captures 'Slice of Life' Moments

In many of Larry Fink’s photographs, candid doesn’t begin to describe how relaxed his subjects are.

He captures such genuine "slice of life" moments that they appear completely unaware someone is taking their picture.

Fink, whose stunning black and white photos will be displayed today through May 21 in the History of Jazz Gallery adjacent to The Sheldon Concert Hall in St. Louis, has a simple explanation for why his photo subjects seem oblivious to his presence.

"I saw the film ‘The Invisible Man’ a long time ago, with Claude Rains," Fink said by phone from his farm home in Pennsylvania. "I bought the film – an original copy of it – and I boiled it down into a solution and I made pills out of it. When I go out to shoot, I take two or three Invisible Man pills, and that works."

In the exhibition photo titled "Oslin’s Teen Party, June 1977," featuring two amorous couples on a couch, Fink’s explanation may make sense.

"My wife always said that I actually become invisible, which is ridiculous because I’m a 200-plus pound guy, and I’m not invisible at all," he said. "I’m noisy, cantankerous – generally I like the center of attention, to tell you the truth. And I’m garrulous and gregarious. When I’m in public, I like to be part of the energy."

"Larry Fink: Attraction and Desire – 50 Years in Photography" includes 120 photographs ranging from the 1958 series "The Beatniks" to several pictures of Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton on the campaign trail in 2008. The photos offer fascinating glimpses into the lives of both the famous and unknown. The images are grouped into categories, from series Fink has done on "Boxing," "Social Graces," "Somewhere There’s Music," "Runway" and "The Democrats," plus snapshots of his home, family, neighbors and travels.

"It’s pretty extensive and pretty major for us," said Chris Peimann, director of marketing and publicity for The Sheldon.

Fink has an eye for light and shadow and is adept at rendering evocative portraits, from an older woman surrounded by a swirl of cigarette smoke to a little girl whose mother is fixing her hair in a picture titled "First Communion, May 1962." His camera lens also finds whimsical subjects, such as the man wearing a suit and cowboy hat walking down a neon-lit Las Vegas street as a small dog tugs at his pants leg.

More famous subjects include John Coltrane blowing the saxophone in a dimly lit jazz club in March 1962 and Coretta Scott King looking out a car window during the Poor People’s Campaign in Washington, DC in May, 1968, about a month after her husband was assassinated. Fink caught jazz trumpeter Roy Hargrove and actress-singer Eartha Kitt at Gramercy Park in New York City in March of 2000 and Anjelica Huston at an Oscar party in March 2002.

Fink, who will discuss his career during a free talk at 11 a.m. Saturday in The Sheldon’s Gallery of Photography, acknowledged his role in documenting moments in history, whether significant or fleeting.

"My intentions in photographing have always been to leave something behind for posterity. If you make a glorious picture, it’s a moral victory of some kind," he said. "It’s something you can leave to others to appreciate and grow with. When you work with that kind of essential generosity, people trust you."

Fink’s ability to be the photographic fly on the wall resulted in some of the exhibit’s most appealing pictures, from his wife and dogs snoozing on a bed to a solitary man sitting in a diner at Broadway and 42nd Street in New York City in 1961.

"He just immersed himself in whatever society he was taking pictures of," Peimann said. "It seems like he has a way of becoming a chameleon and blending in."

Fink, who was born in Brooklyn on March 11, 1941 and grew up in the New York City area, was 12 when he started taking pictures.

"It was a hobby, just like any other goofus on Long Island," he said.

At 15, he left the "goofus" stage behind and began pursuing photography in earnest. By the time Fink was in his 30s, he had won a couple of Guggenheim Fellowships grants, a couple of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and had his first show at the Museum of Modern Art.

"That’s when you’re really getting to be a hot property," he said. "Then it’s a question, if you’re ambitious and you feel the work has some worth and can help people or educate people or whatever it can do to add to human culture, you want to keep it going," he said. "In our capitalist system, in order to share it, on any kind of level of universality, you have to sell it."

He has always preferred black and white photography.

"You can capture the moods in black and white," he said. "It’s a deductive medium – it doesn’t have a color pallet to work with."

When you are going for a mood, colors often get in the way, Fink said. For instance, a man in bright red pants or a woman in green strolling into a photo that is supposed to be muted brown and ochre can destroy the effect.

"Not to say there aren’t great color photos – there are," Fink said. "But there are fewer that have that evoking power, (compared to) black and white."

One of the photos in the exhibit is striking in its contrast. It is simply titled "George Plimpton, Jan. 1999." In the picture, Plimpton, a journalist well known for his participatory style of writing, sits dour-faced in the center background. In the right foreground, a man flamboyantly kisses a smiling young blonde on the neck.

The picture was from a fashion shoot that had a theme reflecting the movie "The Sweet Smell of Success," about a powerful gossip columnist and the hustler who tries to get in on the action. The man kissing the woman in Fink’s picture, Jarett Wieselman, was the gossip columnist for the New York Post.

"We had Jarett as the hustler, and I gave him permission, so to speak, to get really drunk, to relinquish his control over all others, and to really lunge and lust after all the women. I just kept goading him on, and he kept on taking my advice in more and more profound ways," Fink said, chuckling. "Henceforth this picture. A very good picture emerged from his delirium with freedom."

Whether goading subjects or blending in, Fink said his work is hard to categorize. He’s not a journalist, yet many of his photos have the feel of photojournalism. His is a fine art photographer, but without the posturing, he said.

"I’m always outside of the box, which is OK, because hell, who wants to live in a box?"

The Sheldon display is Fink’s first retrospective in America, he said. Fink, a professor of photography at Bard College in New York, hopes visitors will benefit from the exhibit in some way.

"Primarily what my work wants to do is to educate, and allow people to feel and to be accessible," he said.

Whether capturing a twirling dancer, braided ponytail flying behind her at Studio 54 in New York City or a nervous looking boxer getting his hands wrapped before a fight, Fink’s goal is to tell a story representing that moment when the shutter clicked.

"The story is most important, and the feel of it," he said. "I’m just so happy to, if I can, light up the Midwest a little bit with some Northeastern schmaltz."

An all-gallery reception to celebrate the opening of Fink’s exhibit and four other new exhibits will be held 5-8 tonight at the gallery. Normal gallery hours are noon-8 p.m. Tuesday, noon-5 p.m. Wednesday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday and one hour before Sheldon concerts and during intermission.

Gallery admission is free, but donations are accepted. For more information, see www.thesheldon.org.

The Sheldon Art Galleries are located at 3648 Washington Boulevard, near the intersection of Grand Avenue, in St. Louis. Take Interstate 64 East to Grand Avenue, turn north on Grand and drive to Washington, the first street after the Fox Theatre. Turn west (left) on Washington. There are parking lots on both sides of the street, plus street parking at meters.

It is about a 55-minute drive from Wentzville.