Elliott Erwitt is a 92-year old photographer who discusses his storied 70-year career capturing iconic moments in history as well as everyday scenes around the world. While now letting his photographs speak for themselves, Erwitt's photos documented important figures like JFK, Fidel Castro, and Richard Nixon. Currently, Erwitt is working with non-profits on a campaign using one of his photos from 1965 of plastic gloves on a clothesline in Sicily to raise awareness about providing PPE to healthcare workers during the pandemic. Throughout his career, Erwitt found the best photos occurred when he was traveling with his camera and happened upon interesting scenes.

1. Elliott Erwitt
Interview
The 92 year old photographer discusses a storied career of
capturing big and small moments and why he’s happy to keep
working for as long as possible
Mon 9 Nov 2020 15.58 GMT
3
Elliott Erwitt: 'Photography is pretty simple. You just
react to what you see'
Nadja Sayej
lliott Erwitt is a man of few words – but to get the 92-year-old photographer talking,
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just ask him about the weather. It s been raining this morning and it s overcast, he
says on a recent afternoon, over the phone from a house in the Hamptons.
He lets silence fill the air, something of a trademark of his (by no surprise, a 2019 documentary
about Erwitt was called Silence Sounds Good).
Though his career has spanned the course of 70 years and has witnessed some of the most
notable moments of modern history, he lets his photos do the talking. Erwitt snapped John F
Kennedy at the White House, Fidel Castro in Cuba and Richard Nixon in Moscow. He shot stars
such as Marilyn Monroe, was backstage with Marlene Dietrich and got most of these shots
because he always had a camera, capturing a bygone era.
Now, Erwitt has teamed up with the non-profit Project Hope and
philanthropy firm Phil Ropy for a campaign that turns one of Erwitt’s
photographs into a digital postcard to raise awareness about providing
personal protective equipment to healthcare workers around the world.
It’s an image that makes sense for today’s pandemic – a pair of plastic gloves
hang from a clothesline. It was taken by Erwitt in Sicily in 1965. “Instead of
underwear, they hung up plastic gloves,” he says. “I was just walking around
in the city and that’s when you find such things.”

3. Photograph: Project Hope / Phil Ropy
Erwitt was on a trip with his kids and found himself there for work. “It’s such an interesting
place,” he recalls, “that’s what I did there, you just go around, say hello to the volcano, the usual
things.”
He has a playful approach to photography, bringing a sense of adventure and spontaneity but
he’s clearly into the banal too, having shot everything from classrooms to open roads and train
stations, proving his famous adage is true: “The best things happen when you just happen to be
somewhere with a camera.”
They have a sense of uncanny wit about them like his shot of a bather with the American flag
covering his face in 1975, or his photo of a yorkie with its hair blowing in the wind with its

4. owner, from 1968.
But ask about his great photographs that have documented political history – like his crushing
photograph of Jackie Kennedy crying at JFK’s funeral – and he just falls silent or changes the
subject. He’d rather talk about dogs or travel, two of his passions when it comes to photography.
He remembers being in Paris in the 1950s. “I have a long career of taking photographs in most
places, and certainly Paris was one of them,” says Erwitt. “I visited it regularly. What do I love
about Paris is the language and the food, that’s about it.
“I was born in Paris, but left early on,” he recalls (he was born to Russian parents but moved to
America in 1939, when he was just a child). “I have a book about Paris, one about Rome, one on
the Soviet Union, wait.”
Silence.
“What was I going to say? Oh, right. I’ve been at it for quite some time. I’ve been to most of the
places that are of interest, touristic and journalistic.”