Chicagoist Presents: From the Vault of Art Shay

By Chuck Sudo in Arts & Entertainment on Dec 22, 2010 5:00PM

\<strong\>Interracial Christmas\<\/strong\>\r\n\r\nWhat would Christmas on State Street be without a black Santa Claus and an Asian kid who wants a mini soccer ball? \r\n\r\n\<em\>Chicago, Illinois, circa 1971\<\/em\>

If you wondered what happened to holiday parade reindeer after the snow - here they are parked in a holding pen on south State Street.

\<strong\>Skylines\<\/strong\>\r\n\r\nThe patterns made by rising planes leaving O’Hare have always fascinated photographers. I remember experimentally shooting a landing monster using a big flashbulb- trying to get the pattern of take-off lights included in the picture. The Saturday Evening Post was grateful.\r\n\r\n\<em\>Chicago, Illinois, circa 1960\<\/em\>

\<strong\>Fallen Starr\<\/strong\>\r\n\r\nLegendary coach Vince Lombardi bawls out his famous quarterback Bart Starr for a minor mistake.\r\n\r\n\<em\>Green Bay, Wisconsin, January 2, 1966\<\/em\>\r\n

\<strong\>Mourning Becomes Daley\<\/strong\>\r\n\r\nTheatre on the Lake in Lincoln Park remembers their benefactor with an unintended insult.\r\n\r\n\<em\>Chicago, Illinois, December 1976\<\/em\>

\<strong\>Long Lost Icon\<\/strong\>\r\n\r\nWithin a two year period I sold 20 funny and ironic pictures to the then-mighty \<em\>Chicago Tribune Sunday Magazine\<\/em\>. I did it to convince two of my photographer sons that good pictures sell themselves. I especially liked this image from a building being wrecked across the street from a museum purporting to display contemporary photography. \r\n\r\nAt the time, I was teaching a once-a-week advanced journalism course. During that week more than a thousand photographers and instructors had passed this scene, but mine was apparently the only camera that saw the faux-excavation of an ancient God-, eyes to the heavens, arms outstretched, legs firmly planted. You can teach photo technique but not the art of seeing. I learned this one night when sending my class of 17 out into the building to “shoot whatever you see”. Starting out they all walked past me and the open door of the classroom adjoining mine. In that doorway sat a beautiful young woman nursing a baby while trying to study. \r\n\r\nI knew in that instant I could never be a teacher.\r\n\r\n\<em\>Chicago, Illinois, 1991\<\/em\>

\<strong\>Bearing The Cold\<\/strong\>\r\n\r\nThe hearty Lincoln Park Zoo bears bear up with Italian bread from the Zoo kitchen, just north of downtown Chicago.\r\n\r\n\<em\>Chicago, Illinois, circa 1970\<\/em\>\r\n\r\n

These goose-stepping Canadian geese were discovered as a roadside attraction on an Indiana farm as I drove back from a \<em\>Sports Illustrated\<\/em\> Olympic trials shoot in Detroit.

Art Shay

[Ed. Note: Today, we're honored here at Chicagoist to introduce what we hope will be the beginning of a fruitful relationship with the legendary photographer, Art Shay.

We also ask, if you have a chance, to catch Mr. Shay's current gallery exhibition, "That Was Then" at Thomas Masters Gallery (245 W. North Ave., 312-440-2322). It runs through tomorrow. Now, let's turn the floor over to Mr. Art Shay. — CJS]

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Art Shay on "Decisions! Decisions!"

"The mind of a photographer — let immodest me make it a personal boast : a photographer who's published 30,000 pictures and more than 1000 covers on national magazines and more than 50 of my own books — is constantly, instantly, making aesthetic decisions. The same kind you make every time you look through your digital finder. 'Do I shoot now, NOW? Nnnnow? No... Now! Got it!'
"Maybe.

"Then comes the just as tough decision-making of editing (you see where I'm going).
To keep it in perspective all I have to do, as a sometimes shooter for Sports Illustrated, is remember Mickey Mantle in the locker room after going a mere 4 for 5. 'Sunovabitch!' he berated his sweaty nude self in the mirror, 'you knew after ten feet it started out fastball, so why the fuck did you swing like it was a fuckin' curve?' He broke the bat (swinging right) on the bench to emphasize his point to the deaf gods of baseball. To all pros all such gods are deaf. It's just you baby, your addled head, your inadequate body.

"I have made such instant bad decisions that have cost me full pages, spreads and covers - and the four figure bonuses that come with some of them.

"We have an ongoing Shay family joke. We're blessed with four pro photographers and many young children. At family gatherings when multiple cameras come out, one usually quiet voice often rings out — that of my wife, Florence, the quiet rare book dealer. 'Now! Now! Now!,' she shouts at one or another of us sighting one of the kids or several interacting. This breaks us up, because Florence doesn't even know how to use an idiot camera and never has. 'But I've looked at thousands of pictures,' she defends, 'and I know what makes a good picture!' Yeah, sure.

"Once, riding as a decoy in a car in which a great Life crime writer and I (a famous Mafia stalker) were trailing a crooked prison official taking a Mafia capo on a for-pay weekend pass from Lompoc Prison, a country club facility for rich felons in California, Florence. in her excitement, began shouting directions: 'Not the little road- take the highway. Can't you see they're going north.' Etc.

"Photography, among other things, is developing strong instant opinions and acting on them. But you gotta do it with a camera, not your mouth.

"So, in answer to Mr. Sudo's question about why I chose some of the pictures you see, all I can do is tell you what I remember of how they came about. Does my black Santa regaling a young Asian betray some of my feelings about Christmas? Or whether an illiterate dog is breaking a law he can't read? That's your decision."