The Story Behind the Stories
- Gary Gruber
- 1 day ago
- 7 min read
(writer's note: This piece was written in 2020 and lost until a few days ago)
I’ve selected some of my favorite photos, and the stories behind them. I did predominantly ‘street photography through the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s. The primary rule was ‘always carry a camera’, one I dutifully obeyed.
After graduating from Syracuse University in 1971, I stayed on for some time while Phyllis finished the second year of her master’s degree in journalism. I made $50 per week teaching photography at the Everson Museum, and lived in a condemned house with four other guys on the edge of a sketchy neighborhood near the university.
They all had rooms, I had a cot in the hallway with a pole strung from the lights to hang my clothes on. There was a courtyard below where the owner’s children played. While the children were unkempt, they had a spirit that rose far above the squalor they lived in.
I had stopped for a candy bar at a local convenience in Syracuse (1971) and this guy followed me out to my car. I scurried back into the VW pronto and cracked the windshield a bit to talk to him. He was hustling; but I wasn’t buying.
Working at the Everson Museum had its perks, not the least of which was John Lennon’s 30th birthday party. Yoko Ono was in tow for her first one-woman art exhibit, although her ‘art’ drew more sneers than cheers from the locals.
Eric Clapton, Paul McCartney, and Allen Ginsberg were there, but most-outrageous- character award went to Dennis Hopper, who showed up with a plastic bag full of peyote, offering a spoonful to anyone interested.
Part of the exhibit was standing on the third floor balcony, looking through opera glasses at John and Yoko holding hands on the floor below us while seated at a table.
Before returning to Syracuse after graduation, I traveled to Pittsburgh to see my three muses one last time. I spent my first year at Duquesne University. I had been accepted there and to Syracuse but chose Pittsburgh because they would let me have my motorcycle on campus as a freshman.
It all started there. I was in pre-med, but for some unexplainable reason I grabbed my camera that was slung on the doorknob of my room and took it with me to campus. I was walking with one of my muses – Irene, although we called her ‘Tinker’. If you check Webster’s for a definition of ‘blithe spirit’, you should see her picture. As we walked through downtown Pittsburgh, we passed an expensive ‘E’ type Jaguar parked in front of a drug store. She looked at me and said “You pretend you’re a photographer and I’ll pretend I’m a fashion model”. She stretched out on the hood of the Jag, switching poses every few seconds while I snapped away.
I dropped the film off at the drugstore and we were both taken aback at the results. The shots were great from our perspective. I went to the community darkroom on campus the next day and learned how to process film. When I told my mother I was switching majors, the eruption across the phone line was as close to a tsunami as I’ve ever experienced. It took her two full years to realize I was serious about being a photog.
The photo above was taken at a park near Tinker’s apartment on the day I left to return to Syracuse.
After a grueling train trip from Florence, Italy in 1970, I exited the Paris metro and this is the first image I saw. I sat down on the bench and started snapping away. Both people were lost in their own worlds and didn’t know or care that I was there.
I spent six glorious weeks in a third floor walk-up across the street from the Luxembourg Gardens, where I devoted much of every day. At $2.75 per night for my room, I had little to complain about, even though use of the bathtub was an additional fifty cents per day. The cemetery where Jim Morrison was buried was one of my hangouts. It was an appropriately spooky place for him; the dozens of big black cats that lived there were quite territorial -- and as French cats are, were easily offended by an American visitor.
I never got used to a runny egg on top of my hamburger, or bacon that never really met a frying pan. I learned how to say ‘well done’ in French, but always drew a stern lecture and an eye roll from any waiter I spit those words at. I over-packed for my trip to Europe, and after my semester abroad left my suitcase with friends in Munich so I could explore with a backpack and my camera.
They shipped my luggage to me, but I had to present myself to a stern customs agent at Orly Airport to collect it. In a scene out of a Humphrey Bogart movie, I was summoned to a room lit by a single hanging bare bulb as a rotund, chain smoking Frenchman with a skinny mustache examined the contents of my suitcase. Neither of us spoke a mutually understandable dialect, so we played charades for thirty minutes or so. Finally convinced that all of the items were personal, he signed off on my ‘import’ and I was on my way.
1972 saw me roaming the streets of NYC. I made weekly excursions down to various parts of the city, including this December excursion to Coney Island where these guys were desperate to catch some rays. I was bundled up; they seemed oblivious to the numbing cold. New York has always been a location of stark contrasts, a place of black and white with few shades of gray in between.
Manhattan Public Library, 1972. I was sitting directly across from this gentleman. Snapped off one frame and left.
In 1973 I spent a few months living in Cresco, Pa., working for a local printer doing brochure photography. This was caught while doing my laundry. I was living in a small cabin that was previously a chicken shack -- converted to livable accommodations by the industrious owner. Viscerally repulsed by the type of photography I had to do (They never told us in journalism school that we would have to get a job after graduation), I spent my free time wandering around looking for candids like this.
My first trip up the California Coast in 1976 yielded few memorable images but did instill in me a fascination for the imaginative exploits of children. This was a time when I could roam freely in parks, photographing children either alone or interacting with other people. It was an era of innocence and lasted into the early 90’s. I did some of my best work during this period.
Having stopped at a Denny’s for breakfast, another patron noticed my Harley tee shirt and struck up a conversation. After breakfast he invited me to his home to his scooter. This child was standing next door with her cat and obliged me for a few photos. This next image was taken in an ice cream parlor in Studio City, 1980.
Working in the Palm Springs area in the 70’s and 80’s offered opportunities for unusual photos. I had perfected my printing process by this time and was importing photo paper from behind the Iron Curtain – it was the most silver rich paper in the world. I worked in the realm of old money for a long time. Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, Leonard Firestone and Louis B. Mayer all crossed my path, some quite frequently.
Ernie Hahn, an oil baron from Texas held a fund raiser for Eisenhower Medical Center, of which I was the principal photographer. It was a $50,000 per plate dinner, and President Gerald Ford was the guest speaker. I wasn’t a political person back then, but Ford was riveting in the manner in which he presented his thoughts. I shot away, assuming I’d be leaving once everyone sat down for dinner.
I was dumbfounded when Mr. Hahn asked me join him for dinner with his guests. Such a magnanimous gesture had never crossed my path before. Dining on fresh fish from Iceland, the first Kiwi brought into the U.S., and hearts of palm flown in from Brazil was far above my pay grade. It humbled me for the first time in my life.
I just let my eye guide me, and occasionally came up with one-of-a-kind photos like this, which I call “Half a Man”. The image was standing in front of a clothing store on Palm Canyon Dr. in Cathedral City.
Every so often the gals who ran the Ladies Auxiliary at Eisenhower Medical Center would spontaneously amuse themselves in front of the camera, sometimes resulting in bizarre, surrealistic images.
This one has several famous ladies of the times, Dolores Hope (Bob Hope’s wife, third from the right standing) and the movie actress Alice Faye, standing in front of her and alongside the kneeling lady. Sometimes what we called ‘grip and grin’ party photos would materialize into a beautiful, but rare moment.
Things began to shift gears quickly in the early 90’s. Old Money’s elegance was replaced by New Money’s arrogant brashness and my decision to branch out into software development in the early 80’s bore good fruit. I was moving around CA now, a year or two here and there. I found airports to be a fertile source for good photos.
I was not prepared for the coming digital age and refused to embrace it for nearly 20 years. I resented the artistic implication of being able to easily manipulate an image ad infinitum into being something it wasn’t. The integrity of the moment was shattered by this malleability, and I would not capitulate – for a while at least. This was my last film photo for the time, taken in Glendale in 1995.
I would not shoot again until around 2015, when I used a digital camera for the first time to help me climb out of the hole dug by my frequent and multiple surgeries. All of my work, including my new digital images can be found on my website:
I urge you to visit it on a computer, if you have one available. The web based software does not present well on a phone, and manipulating the menu to find other genre is difficult, at best. There are 19+ menu options available, hopefully a little something for everyone.
When I did return to photography, I found a willing and receptive audience. Palm Springs Life Magazine (I was Director of Photography there back in ’78) gave me a feature:
and a local gallery began to represent me:
It has been a wild ride. I’m working on several new projects, the desire to see is still alive in me. Be safe.
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