91-Year-Old Iconic Photographer Art Shay Talks About His Prolific Career
Born in 1922, photographer and writer Art Shay has had a career that most creatives only dream of. Between Life, Time, Fortune, Sports Illustrated, Forbes, Business Week, Parade, The New York Times Magazine and many more, Shay has shot about 1,100 magazine covers.
This video — shot and produced by Bradley Rochford of Hanson Dodge Creative — gives you a quick overview of the amazing life and work of this still-active 91-year-old photographer.
A Bronx native and WWII veteran, Shay has had the opportunity to photograph seven U.S. Presidents in addition to sports icons such as Mohammad Ali and film legends such as Marlon Brando. In all that time, he’s also made a name for himself as a successful and talented writer, writing weekly columns, children’s books, plays and, of course, photo essay books.
His big goal when he came back from the war as to work as a Life magazine photographer, a goal he equated with “playing for the New York Yankees” at the time. He was actually hired on as a writer for Life, but quickly wound up contributing as a freelance photographer as well.
The short video was put together in preparation for a free exhibit of Shay’s that will run in Milwaukee, WI at Hanson Dodge Creative from June 21 through September 30th. If you’re in the area, you would be remiss to miss out on the opportunity to see this great man’s work.
If, however, you don’t happen to be in Milwaukee between those dates, you can follow his work through the weekly photography blog he writes for Chicagoist, called “From the Vault of Art Shay.”
(via ISO 1200)
