Dan's Papers - June 15, 2007 - Who's Here

Sitting on a roof top eleven stories above cobblestone streets, meatpacking plants and trendy eateries in New York City's Meatpacking District, photographer Michael Dweck is at home in his outdoor studio overlooking the Hudson River. Walking over to a bench, Dweck takes his camera bag off of his shoulder, places it along with his blackberry on a round table and takes a seat. His shoulder length brown curls -- once called an "Isro" (Israeli Afro) by his friends in high school -- begins blowing in the wind.

"I was born this way," Dweck says about his tumbleweed looking hair. "It's become my trademark." So much so, that when he was in Japan, somebody made him a rubber stamp with the words "Bush Head" on it.

But the man who recently photographed the "Girls of Montauk" for Playboy's July issue will be the first one to tell you that it's not his appearance that matters, it's his ability to capture the beauty of his subjects.

"In the case of the Playboy photographs, I wanted it to be a celebration of life by the beach," Dweck said. "That was the idea. I wanted people to look at the body of work and say, 'I would love to be in that place now.'"

The 49-year-old, self-taught photographer has been perfecting his craft since the age of seven, when his father bought him his first Kodak camera at the 1964 World's Fair.

"The first thing I did was disassemble my parents' television set and take out the picture tube," Dweck said about his first photos. "I'd put my little brother in there and photograph him with these frames. It was cool. Almost like a storyboard. I didn't realize until later on that there was a sticker on the TV that said it was like 10,000 volts or something if I touched the wrong thing."

The self-proclaimed "mischievous child" was able to get away with this tactic during his childhood in Bellmore because he would reassemble the television set before his parents came home. His father later bought him a 35mm camera when he reached junior high school.

Art played an important role in Dweck's development. He enjoyed painting and always had a camera on hand, which he used to photograph friends, lifeguards and surfers at Jones Beach.

"I think my camera, together with me, kind of helped bring out my personality a lot when I was younger," Dweck said. "And it's very much my personality now."

He credited Jimi Hendrix for the way he expressed himself in high school. Dweck wore four-inch, orange, suede, gum-soled high heels and a velour vest to his John F. Kennedy High School prom. "I think I scared my girlfriend's mother," he recalls. Trying to be like Hendrix, he used to pick out his hair before high school track meets as well.

It was also during his high school years that Dweck and his friends discovered Montauk.

"In the late 70s, I heard that the Stones were out there. I'm a big Stones fan. I heard they were staying at Warhol's place. My friend, Oscar, a trumpet player, and I was a drummer, said 'let's go out there and let's play really loudly.' My brother's girlfriend had a house out there somewhere in Napeague. We thought that that's where Warhol was. We thought Montauk was one small place, not knowing that Napeague's nowhere near Montauk. So we got there at two in the morning, opened the windows and jammed for hours, saying, 'You know what? They're going to hear us. They're going to ask us to come over and play with them. And that's how we're going to make it as Rock and Roll stars.' Of course, that didn't happen.

"So we went out that night. We went to Shagwong, the only bar in town. And we said, 'Hey, we heard the Stones were here. You guys know where they are?' And the bartender said they were there earlier. Of course, the guy was goofing on me, we found out later on. He's like, 'Ah, you missed them. You should come back tomorrow.' We came back the next day, of course, and he said, 'Ah you missed them again.'

"We then went looking for Warhol's house. That's when I discovered Ditch Plains and fell in love with Montauk."

Dweck now visits Montauk with his wife, Cecilia, who he met through photography, and their two children, as often as possible. He has been renting houses or staying at the East Deck in Ditch Plains for many summers. Dweck enjoys taking pictures, fishing with his son for striped bass at their secret fishing hole, hanging out at Shagwong after hours and eating at the Harvest, when he can get in.

After graduating from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, first studying Architecture and then changing to Fine Arts because "they didn't appreciate my approach to architecture," Dweck worked as a creative director for his own companies -- Dweck & Campbell and later Dweck! During his time in advertising, Dweck won 40 international awards, including a Gold Lion at the Cannes Film Festival. Two of his long form television commercials are now part of the permanent collection in the Museum of Modern Art.

"The advertising and my photographs are similar in some ways," Dweck said. "I want to make photographs that evoke an emotional response, instigate a reaction and, hopefully, incite a discussion. I had similar objectives for the advertising work I was involved in creating. I think it helped hone some of my skills."

In 2002, Dweck began his professional photography career in Montauk when he started shooting images about the surf culture for his book, The End: Montauk, N.Y. The book was published by Harry N. Abrams in the summer of 2004. The first printing sold out in two weeks and the book is now considered one of the fastest selling art books in years. Dweck signed copies of the book for the likes of Madonna, Giorgio Armani and Paul Smith.

"That was my portfolio in essence," Dweck said. "Luckily, in 2003, Sotheby's called me and said, 'How would you like to have a solo show?' They said, 'We've never had one before for a living photographer. What do you think of the idea?' And I'm like, 'Let me think. Uh, Great!' That day marked the start of my career as an artist."

Dweck sold many of the 68 photographs that were displayed in Sotheby's main gallery. The photos in the book were a success, especially the cover photo of a girl running naked with a surfboard into the water. That photo was shown in the Louvre as part of the "Paris Photo" show the following year.

"It's important because I guess it validated my work at an early stage," Dweck said about his photo being chosen for the prestigious show. "I had only been working professionally for a year at that point."

The Staley Wise Gallery in New York began representing Dweck. "They represent some of my favorite photographers like Helmut Newton, Richard Avedon and Toni Frissell." The Fahey Klein gallery in Los Angeles, the Eric Franck Gallery in London and the Blitz Gallery in Tokyo also represent him.

Over the past three years, Dweck's photographs have skyrocketed in value. Once selling at $1,500, some of his works now fetch anywhere in the range of $15,000 to $20,000. Ralph Lauren, Placido Domingo and Howard Schultz are just a few of the people who collect his photographs.

"Photography, I think, is the art of observing," Dweck said about his craft. "I think, with photography, it's something that either you have or you don't. You have to have an eye and a mind that knows how to photograph. I think it's something that can't be taught. Technically, you can teach somebody about light, but I don't think you can teach somebody about composition and emotion. It's something that I think you're born with."

His next book, Mermaids, is a series of photographs made under water and is scheduled to come out in March of 2008. The inspiration behind these photographs was connected to Montauk as well.

"I always wondered what would happen if I fell off a fishing boat late one night," Dweck said. "What beautiful creatures would I see?"

Mermaids is also going to be the title of Dweck's next exhibition and will travel to galleries in the United States, Europe and Japan.

However, there is no place like home for Dweck.

"This place is like the world right here," Dweck said about Manhattan. "The art, the energy, the music, the people -- a potent stimulus. And Montauk has some of the most beautiful light I've ever seen. I think that's one of the reasons why artists like Jackson Pollack, Willem de Kooning and Andy Warhol liked to be out here."