I haven’t always considered photography an art. I thought of it for some time as luck and timing. I never had the “photo-taking gene” and was sometimes out of sorts with my friends who went about snapping. Well, forget about my friends; what about the famous and talented professionals I know?

Thinking on them, I have changed my mind. One reason is my long relationship with the great lensman Harry Benson and his darling wife Gigi, who runs his life and work. You can see Harry’s handiwork on the wowOwow site; he took a gaggle of women over 50 and made them all look good. And we had fun while we did it. Harry has produced book after book, many for Tiffany & Co. And they are all works of art. So, I’m converted.

Now, Harry never made any money taking pictures of me; but he did give me a shot as a subject. He clicked me dancing in Shubert Alley, being made up by a porn movie queen and showing off generally. His true subjects are more apt to be kings, queens, presidents, first ladies and movie stars. Or he’ll just stand around in Scandinavia taking photographs of little kids in parades. Whatever he does, it comes out great.

Here is a photo Harry took a few months ago of me with the famous editor of Architectural Digest — Paige Rense. Paige and I showed up for this sitting worrying about how we would look. We hadn’t had time for much makeup and we kept begging Harry to “be kind” because, we told him unnecessarily, “We’re not spring chickens.” Harry just laughed like the genial gentlemanly Scotsman he is. He had his lights set up, he put us in the frame and, twenty minutes later, we were immortalized. He claimed later he didn’t even retouch the photo. (He’s probably lying but Paige and I were delighted.)

© Harry Benson

Liz and Paige Rense

Harry has a big book out just this minute from powerHouse Books. It is titled R.F.K.: A Photographer’s Journal and it covers Bobby Kennedy 40 years ago, with wonderful pictures of him and his children, as well as the aftermath — the night he was murdered in Los Angeles. Harry includes his memories of Bobby Kennedy and this is not only artful photography but history as well.

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I also want to call your attention to the work of one Peter Harron, a native of Bermuda who now resides in Essex, Connecticut. (And if you are not familiar with Essex, it happens to be the little jewel of a town on the Connecticut River which realtors vote every year is the most desirable town in America. I think the reason Essex isn’t overcrowded is because it has no supermarket, so people settle elsewhere — thank goodness!)

Peter Harron is a handsome devil, now offering us his silver gelatin prints from 2007, taken in North Africa. His photos, like the one shown here, are the sensation this spring and summer at that little jewel of a museum, the Lyman Allyn Art Museum in New London, CT. They will be on exhibit through August 17th.

© Peter Harron

Moroccan Landscapes by Peter Harron

If you can go see Peter’s stuff, you’ll also want to give the Lyman Allyn a look over. This treasure offers many eclectic works from the past and present and maybe the future.

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I see my old acquaintance Kelly Klein has decided to take her mania for horses to its logical conclusion. The former wife of designer Calvin Klein is a well-known equestrian who graduated from the Fashion Institute of Technology. She did a famous book called Pools, covering swimming “holes” around the world. Now she has put together a beautiful book called Horse for Rizzoli. Herein is the equine photography of many famous people as well as her own. She includes Helmut Newton, Bruce Weber, Steven Klein, Robert Mapplethorpe, Sheila Rock, Chris Makos, Richard Prince, Bob Richardson and Ellen von Unwerth.

From Horse by Kelly Klein

From Horse by Kelly Klein

This handsome volume costs $150 but is worth it for the horse lover you know at Christmas or for his birthday.

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Remember in “The Devil Wears Prada” how Anne Hathaway kept mispronouncing the name of uber-photographer Patrick Demarchelier? Well, in the new movie “Sex and the City” we get a chance to actually view Patrick at work. He shoots Sarah Jessica Parker for a Vogue cover. Recently Patrick’s contribution to the Cannes AmFAR auction went for a whopping $324,000.

An exhibition of Demarchelier’s work will open at the Petit Palais in Paris under the patronage of French president Nicholas Sarkozy. This happens September 29th to coincide with Paris Fashion Week. The opening night is expected to kick off the Paris social season.

But we can just stay cozily in the United States looking at Patrick’s ongoing work in Vanity Fair, Vogue and everywhere else that counts.

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