In Photographer’s Forum magazine Summer 2001 issue, Jay Maisel was quoted as saying, “Everybody should have one great teacher in his or her life.”
I’ve been lucky to have a few. One of those great teachers was Paul Liebhardt. He was the instructor of my first class, “BA-1″ at Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, CA. I never had another class with him, but he was a mentor for me throughout my education and many years thereafter. Our times together were brief, but what I learned through his eyes will last a lifetime.
One day, I was in his office, and as usual practically every inch of ground space was stacked high with thousands of 35mm slides and the walls were covered with photographic prints. But that day, I noticed something a little different, a 10” inch stack of paper, each with a single quote relating to Photography, Travel and/or Life in general. Paul was in the process of selecting words to accompany the images for his next book.
I began glancing through the pages, “how did he find all these?” was all that kept racing through my mind. They were perfect inspiration. I must have a set. Paul let me take the stack of papers, I went to Kinkos and spent a few hours copying them all — and more recently, I’ve since had them transcribed.
What follows are those quotes. Thanks Paul…