| From Photoworkshop.com Cover Archives  CLICK HERE TO SEE A GALLERY OF PETER B. KAPLAN'S IMAGESAll images © Peter B. Kaplan Peter B. Kaplan is a commercial and editorial photographer who has captured subjects ranging from wildlife in the Serengeti to the high-rise buildings in New York City and nudes perched at lofty altitudes. He's climbed and photographed the Golden Gate Bridge, the Empire State Building, Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, the St. Louis Arch, the World Trade Center and numerous other sites. He is the "Preferred Photographer" for the Statue of Liberty / Ellis Island Foundation. Although he's famous for his images taken at great heights, scaffolds, and bridge towers, Kaplan never calls himself a daredevil. "I do everything safely," he asserts--from tying down equipment to strapping himself onto precarious vantage points.
Peter B. Kaplan's initial relationship with photography was not a happy one. "I learned to really hate photography at around 11 or 12," he says. "My older brother and my friend's older brother started a business called S&K photography, and they used to photograph parties. Then my friend and I would be stuck in the darkroom. We had to develop all the prints and got only 10%, and the two older brothers had fun and made all the money."
As one who came from a long lineage of doctors, he recalls, "I was always going to be in medicine." But as a college freshman, he was much more interested in racing sports cars. His Father laid down the law: "Either you get better grades, go into the army, or go to work." The following year, Kaplan chose the army and ironically, they made him a medical lab technician. "They used to say, 'join the army and see the world,'" he says. "I used to tell people I got stationed overseas and saw combat. Overseas was over the Hudson River at Fort Dix, New Jersey. The combat was going through the Lincoln Tunnel every weekend on the way home." Kaplan left the service after the Berlin Crisis. "I got out of the army with $580, which was a lot of money in those days," he relates. He also had a Triumph sports car and a rangefinder camera. One of his father's patients—who owned a fashion magazine on New York's Seventh Avenue—gave the young Kaplan a press card. "I stayed on the road for six and a half months and traveled 27,000 miles," he says. The press card allowed him access to places like Disneyland in southern California and the World's Fair in Seattle, Washington. "I conned my way into Hoover Dam, and went to places where the public couldn't go," he says. When he got home, half of his photos were either over- or underexposed, but nonetheless, he was excited about the art of photography.
A Variety of Specialties Kaplan returned to New York with the intention of finishing school, but decided to look for a job instead. Eventually, he landed a job at a catalogue house, which lasted about 4 months. Then he became a partner in a friend's wedding and portrait studio. "I started dating a girl who wanted to become a model, so I started shooting fashion on Long Island," he says. In New York City, he met a Vogue photographer, The Baron Alexis Getchman Waldeck, who offered him an assisting job on the condition that "For $75 a week, 24 hours a day, seven days a week—you're mine!" Kaplan took it. Waldeck came from a very wealthy family with a title and wound up shooting for only two years. "It was very exciting because he was dating Veruschka (the famous supermodel), and I used to cook hot dogs on the fireplace for them. We ate hot dogs and drank wine in the studio," Kaplan says. Waldeck also photographed subjects like Salvatore Dali and Sonny and Cher. "I had a lot of incredible experiences," he relates. "But I learned how phony fashion photography was." After this experience, Kaplan worked as a free-lance assistant for nearly 10 years for Harry Bensen, John Dominus and Arnold Newman, among other great photographers. Then he got an offer to go to Africa as a photographer. "They paid me $75 a week, and I was gone for three weeks," he says. "I rented my loft for $100 a week, so I made more money renting than I did as a photographer." Nonetheless, he recalls that it was a really exciting trip, and he returned with lots of great wildlife images. He showed them to Mel Scott, the head of Time/Life books, and Kaplan started working on the American Wilderness book series, as well as a flower and animal series. He also got the cover of Audubon magazine and two photographs inside after taking a trip up to Alaska on his honeymoon with his first wife. He was paid $250 for the cover and $125 for the inside photos. "That's when I decided to get out of wildlife photography," he remembers. "I just couldn't afford it."
Back in New York, Kaplan got into architectural photography, which led to taking pictures at great heights. "The first thing I did when I started climbing was to photograph the 59th Street Bridge, and I sold it to New York magazine. Everybody said, 'that crazy Kaplan climbs everything.'" From there, he climbed the Brooklyn Bridge and started taking pictures from the top of high-rise buildings. "One thing led to another and it became a great specialty," he says. Currently, he's working on a book project with Ritz Camera on the A.I. Dupont High School Marching Band from a high vantage point, done with his pole, above the New Year's Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, California. Kaplan has also gotten permission to climb the Vincent Thomas Bridge in L.A. And because he's working on another book project entitled America From Above, which focuses on various locations around the U.S. photographed from high places, he's gotten permission to climb the U.S. Bank building on January 2nd, also in Los Angeles. He is also climbing the Cal Trans building and hopefully several others while he's on the west coast. He's in the finishing stages on a project that's a little more down to earth—a book called Nature in my Backyard. "I hear about everybody going to Africa or the Galapagos Islands to photograph nature," he points out. "And it's right there in your own backyard." "I don't waste time," he says. "I know how to get up on buildings." Other photographers marvel at how he's able to get permission to climb famous structures like the Chrysler Building. "I'm persistent and I don't give up. I've built up a name and reputation for safety, and it's opened up a lot of doors--plus I carry a two-million dollar liability policy." This inspires confidence in his clients, "especially when you're climbing around on their building," he explains. Fortunately, he's never had to use it. At one time Kaplan carried a four million dollar policy, but he says that these policies have gotten very expensive over the years. He also takes great care to tie equipment down when he's on top of buildings or construction projects. "I remember one of my assistants didn't tie down a leather case for my 600mm lens and it blew off the bridge and landed on the subway tracks. We had to wind up going down to get it." He gives his assistants strict orders to tie everything down, and when they unzip something, to zip it right back up. He once fired an assistant who didn't follow these orders. Taking Precautions During his mid-fifties, Kaplan's mother once remarked, "Aren't you getting a little too old to climb?" He replied, "Mom, it's more dangerous on the ground than it is up there." And to prove his point, ironically, about a year later he
Kaplan began stabilizing his cameras on sturdy poles years ago, after he did a photo session atop New York's World Trade Center in 1974. "I got permission to go up there, and wanted to get a view looking straight down," he says. "The top of the World Trade Centers didn't come to the edge. It was a 45- degree angle all the way around that was covered with aluminum." When he first climbed it, the building wasn't finished, and there were just three steel beams to which the aluminum was later attached. "I looked straight down, and when you do this, you really don't feel the height," he explains. He used a tripod extended six feet out over the side, "and I was terrified," he says. "When I got the film (remember that stuff?) back, I looked at it with my ex-wife and she literally got up and left the room. She couldn't stand to look at the view over the side of the World Trade Center six-feet out with a 15mm lens. I remembered my art teacher at Hackley saying 'Good art should get a reaction!' She walked out, which was a reaction." Afterwards, he contacted the public relations department at the Empire State Building and showed them the article and photos in Lens magazine from his shoot at the World Trade Center. Kaplan wanted to photograph the same type of wide-angle scene at the Empire State Buildings, and although the public relations manager loved the idea, the management at Helmsley Spear declined giving him permission to stick his camera over the side of the building. Kaplan called Alvin Schwartz, the president of Helmsley, who had been a patient of his father's. Schwartz set everything up for the shoot to take place. "It's who you know," asserts Kaplan. "You have to find the right key to get these things to open. It's one thing I've always told young photographers—use any connection you've got, and don't be embarrassed to use one of your parents' connections." He did his first long 'Pole Shot,' 28-foot piker poles that were gaffer taped together.
Loving What You Do His upcoming projects include a meeting with Turner Construction, who is talking to him about doing a book on one of the new "World Trade Center" buildings. The World Trade Center Memorial Foundation is also possibly interested in having him photograph the memorial. A hangar at Kennedy Airport is filled with pieces of the former World Trade Center, and Kaplan took pictures of fire trucks and emergency vehicles that had been smashed up and burned. "I spent the whole morning photographing it," he says, describing the experience as very depressing. "Kidd, my assistant, and I saw thick steel beams twisted like pretzels." Additionally, he's talking to officials at the United
Among his fondest memories was when he documented the four-year restoration of the Statue of Liberty, which he began in 1982. Kaplan's images of the statue appear on 172 stamps worldwide. He had access to take pictures from the statue's torch, as well as from all other areas. From the outside balcony of the torch, he remembers a very moving experience at sunset, when tour boats on the water below played God Bless America. "And as I looked down at the tourist standing on the deck while singing along with their eyes looking up at her torch," he says, "I would get goosebumps from head to toe, no matter how many times I did this." See more of Peter B. Kaplan's images at www.peterbkaplanstock.com CLICK HERE TO SEE A GALLERY OF PETER B. KAPLAN'S IMAGES© Copyright 2002 by Photoworkshop.com |
