About the book
Howard Schatz’s motivating passion is to explore and experiment, searching for images that surprise and delight. This remarkable new work is an exploration of the relationship between two subjects and the visual, graphic, emotional, social, physical and even spiritual dynamic that results from the pairing. The connections are sometimes subtle, sometimes not. This is a photographic odyssey into the world of pairs.
PAIRS by Howard Schatz &
Beverly Ornstein
404 pages with 365 color and black/white photographs
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6” x 8.25”
$40.00 + $10 shipping & handling
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The book is available from website and from Amazon.
Published by Lawrence Richard Publishing, New York, NY
Contact: Publisher@lawrencerichardpublishing.com
Howard Schatz speaks about the book
From the beginning of my professional career my main interest, my motivating force and
passion, has been to explore and experiment, search-ing for imagery that would surprise and delight me in my quest to ex-press what’s deep inside. One of many areas of my on-going interest has been the exploration of the relationship between two subjects: the visual, graphic, emotional, social, physical and even spiritual dynamic resonating and resulting from such combinations.
I am in search of the electric, sometimes eccentric and always compel-ling connections possible with a combination of two whether dancers, athletes, mothers and newborns, gymnasts and
even inanimate objects. Sometimes they were brought together intentionally: I’ve found other images that speak to each other in ways I had not previously noticed. The connections are sometimes subtle, sometimes not.
I’ve scoured for pairings of every sort. Not necessarily the Shakespearean form of heroic couplets, but couplets nevertheless. I have tried to look for both the unexpected and the unusual in my art.
A photographic odyssey into the world of twos is a natural outgrowth of my ongoing search for surprise and delight. I continue to make new images in pursuit of this quest.
I have done shoots with many different photographers throughout my career and none of them pushed me in quite the way Howard did. He said to us, if it looks impossible, it’s worth photographing, and kept inviting my partner and I to take our movement to the absolute edge of what we were doing. The clarity of his vision helped us be creative in entirely new ways. It’s not easy in dance photography to create something completely original and his dedication to this pursuit made for some extraordinary results. I’ve never received such a dramatic response to an image as the one we created together. I had friends calling me saying, I stared at this for the longest time and can’t figure out how you did it.
Howard made me feel like a real
valuable person, not just a model. I wasn't feeling home at all in NYC, this city was very scary to me and meeting them was like a proof that I will always be able to find love and sweetness wherever I would go.
Giving birth was a magical experience,
and so was sharing the bonding with a newborn alongside Howard's camera. He has a special and intimate way of engaging with us as an artist, allowing us to just be, to naturally do whatever the moment called for, and to see beauty as we connected as a new mother and newborn baby, heart-to-heart, skin-to-skin.
His photos capture the raw and authentic feelings and images of a once in a
lifetime time and place.
Breaking the cookie cutter dancer image was right up my alley. It was a real gift to not only break this boundary but to do it with a renowned artist like Howard. He was professional, informative, and most importantly kind. I learned many lessons on how to correctly pose and work with a camera. He taught me about how a photographer can really catch
“the shot” with dancers and I’ve used these lessons with other shoots I went on to do.
In this stunning new book by renowned photographer Howard Schatz, every turn of a page reveals surprising connections and unexpected relationships in the pairing of images.
