The best professional advice Henry Horenstein ever received was to
"shoot what you love." He's been doing that for more than four decades,
capturing photographs that often richly evoke older cultures and places,
especially ones that are disappearing: country musicians in Branson,
horse racing at Saratoga Springs, nightlife in Buenos Aires, fais do-dos
in Cajun Louisiana, old highways everywhere. Horenstein brings these
images together in this rich visual memoir, along with behind-the-scenes
stories, insights, and tips and suggestions for being a better
photographer. His photographs and engaging, often humorous stories
chronicle a career that begins in the 1960s, when photography was a
trade and even the greatest photographers were not considered to be
artists. He amusingly recounts his early assignments. Using his family
and friends as subjects for a book on drug abuse was not too much of a
stretch, he says, and while shooting Dolly Parton for what would become
the Boston Phoenix, the star told him, "Honey, people don't come out to
see me looking like them." He engagingly recalls his shoots with stars
like the Lennon Sisters and Emmylou Harris, as well as his encounters
with Ansel Adams, Minor White, Aaron Siskind, Harry Callahan, Nan
Goldin, and many other photo legends. Commanding these pages, though,
are the subjects with whom Horenstein has chosen to spend most of his
professional career, shooting what he loves. His images of honky-tonk
stars, stock car drivers, exotic sea creatures, mixed-race residents of
rural Maryland, and Venezuelan baseball players tell what he calls "a
good story . . . with humor and a punch line, if possible."
