Classic Photography by Jacques Henri Lartigue

Jacques Henri Lartigue was a French photographer and painter. Born in Courbevoie to a wealthy family, he is most famous for his stunning photos of automobile races, planes and fashionable Parisian women from the turn of the century.
He started taking photos when he was 7, his subject matter being primarily his own life and the people and activities in it. As a child he photographed his friends and family at play - running and jumping, racing wheeled soap boxes, building kites, gliders and aeroplanes, climbing the Eiffel Tower and so on. He also photographed many famous sporting events, including automobile races such as the Coupe Gordon Bennett and the French Grand Prix, early flights by aviation pioneers including Gabriel Voisin, Louis Blériot, Louis Paulhan and Roland Garros, and tennis players such as Suzanne Lenglen at the French Open tennis championships.

Although little seen in that format, many of his earliest and most famous photographs were originally taken in stereo, but he also produced vast numbers of images in all formats and media including glass plates in various sizes, some of the earliest autochromes, and of course film in 2 1/4” square and 35mm. His greatest achievement was his set of around 120 huge photograph albums, which compose the finest visual autobiography ever produced. While he sold a few photographs in his youth, mainly to sporting magazines such as La Vie au Grand Air, in middle age he concentrated on his painting, and it was through this that he earned his living, although he maintained written and photographic journals throughout his life. Only when he was 69 were his boyhood photographs serendipitously discovered by Charles Rado of the Rapho agency, who introduced him to John Szarkowski, then curator of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, who in turn arranged an exhibition of his work at the museum.

From this, there was a photo spread in Life magazine in 1963, coincidentally in the issue which commemorated the death of John Kennedy, ensuring the widest possible audience for his pictures.

Portrait Photography by Richard Avedon

One of the most productive and important partnerships between art director and photographer was that of Brodovitch and Richard Avedon. Working together on Harper’s Bazaar and Portfolio magazines, Brodovitch was undoubtedly Avedon’s greatest influence. Under the designer’s wing, Avedon developed a repertory of stylistic effects that included blurred motion, activity frozen in mid stride, out of focus faces, incongruous subject matter and a cinema verité that resembled the ‘available light’ school of photojournalism.

Classic Photography by François-Marie Banier

François-Marie Banier is a French novelist, playwright, artist, actor and photographer. He is particularly known for his photographs of celebrities and other public figures and for his friendships with members of high society.

Banier was born in Paris, France. He grew up in a middle-class family in the 16th arrondissement of Paris but became estranged from his parents as a teenager. In an interview with Paris Match, he said that he had been “completely incomprehensible to parents”. He also said that his father had beat him, and his mother had an unerring ability to avoid answering questions.

Despite his modest background, from an early age he was a precocious and hyperactive talent, who was able to develop friendships with some of Paris’ wealthiest arts patrons and artists. At the age of 16, he met Salvador Dalí, who would send his car to bring Mr Banier to his suite at the Hotel Meurice to discuss art.At the age of 19, he befriended the wealthy heiress and patron of the arts Marie-Laure de Noailles who was then 64.

François-Marie Banier published his first novel, Les Résidences secondaires ou la Vie distraite, at the age of 22. Around the same time, a well-known Parisian designer and antique dealer Madeleine Castaing helped him launch a career in photography by purchasing a dozen of his photographs for 70,000 francs.

Over the years, Mr Banier befriended many well-known public figures and celebrities, including Pablo Picasso, Yves Saint Laurent, Pierre Cardin, Françoise Sagan, Samuel Beckett, Vladimir Horowitz, Louis Aragon, François Mitterrand, Kate Moss, Mick Jagger and Princess Caroline of Monaco. He is also a good friend of Johnny Depp and his wife Vanessa Paradis, who met at his home in the south of France. Mr Banier is godfather of their daughter, Lily-Rose.

In the 1970s, Mr Banier shared a studio with designer Jacques Grange on rue Servandoni near Luxembourg Gardens. Over the years, he acquired his own studio on rue Servandoni and gradually combined it with adjacent apartments until he was able to open a second entrance on rue de Vaugirard. He now shares these quarters with actor Pascal Greggory and his nephew Martin d’Orgeval. Mr Banier also owns a home in Sommières, France.

Classic Photography by Terry O'Neill

Terry O'Neill is an English photographer, who achieved his greatest success documenting the fashion style, and celebrities of the 1960s. He attracted attention for photographing his subjects in unconventional or candid settings.




He began his photographic career working for a photographic unit for an airline at London's Heathrow Airport. By chance he photographed a sleeping figure in a waiting room; when the person was revealed to be the Home Secretary, O'Neill found further employment on Fleet Street with The Daily Sketch in 1959.

His reputation grew during the 1960s, and in addition to photographing the elite the decade's showbusiness icons, such as Judy Garland, The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, he also photographed members of the British Royal Family, and several prominent politicians, showing a more natural and human side to these subjects than had usually been portrayed before.

He had a longtime relationship with the American actress Faye Dunaway. His son with Dunaway, Liam Dunaway O'Neill, was born in 1980. O'Neill was married to Dunaway from 1983 until 1986. In 2003, he was quoted in the U.S. tabloid magazine, Star, as saying Liam was adopted and not their biological son, contrary to Dunaway's public assertions. Terry O'Neill is currently married to the former model agency head Laraine Ashton.