Some Thoughts From Photographer Jay Maisel (1931-2026); One Of The 20th Century’s Best Who Hated New Cameras!

Jay Maisel (1931-2026). 
Photograph by Randy Duchaine (Fair Use)

Noted photographer Jay Maisel died on August 20, 2026.  He was 95 years old.  The photography world lost a giant.  As one would expect, there have been many tributes and accolades about his work and life.  I have been an admirer of his work for decades.  Recently, I read as well as watched some interviews with him and feel as though some of the things he said about photography, his philosophy and how he worked would be of interest to some of you.  I think they are worth reading.  I think we can certainly learn from him.

Jay was very prolific and famous as a photographer, especially with his use of color.  Like just a few other photographers of the 1960s era, he shot color when only black & white photography was accepted by the art world.  In fact he was one of the most prolific and successful photographers of the second half of the 20th century and well into the 21st. century.  

Interestingly enough, by his own admission, he knew very little and cared very little about the technical aspects of photography, technique and gear.  They were not important to him, yet he achieved huge success as a photographer.  Maybe we can learn from that.

Always mentioned is the fact that in 1966 he bought an empty 35,000 sq. ft. six story bank building and turned it into his home, office, studio, classrooms and image archives.  The building has 72 rooms!  In 2019 he sold it and had all of his things moved out.  There were dozens of moving vans (estimated 30-40).  A movie was made about it by his assistant and fellow photographer Stephen Wilkes which I can recommend entitled, Jay, Myself.  I found it very enlightening and entertaining.

As i mentioned, I’ve been an admirer of Maisel and his work for decades.  I can remember first seeing some of it in the mid-1970s in both Popular Photography and Modern Photography magazines.  He is one of my favorite color photographers of that era along with Pete Turner, Ernst Haas, Saul Leiter, Fred Herzog, Eliot Porter and William Eggleston.

Photo of Jay Maisel buried in Kodachrome slides. 
Photograph is by Chris Callis in 1982.
(Fair Use)

Maisel was a bit different from the others in that he, like me, liked to photograph just about everything.  Everything seemed to interest him.  The others, not so much.  They, more or less, photographed a limited number of subjects.
The other day I discovered a two-part interview with Jay Maisel from 2007 with Michael Reichman (1944-2016) of the Luminous Landscape website.  The interview is not new, but some of the things Maisel said may be of interest and educational to many of us.  

Here are some of the quotes I heard in that interview (and a little bit of paraphrasing and editing by me for clarity):

“I’m interested in everything. People, places and things. Anything that is out there is fair game.”

“My theme is light, gesture, and color.”

“Gesture is always there, but taken for granted. Gesture is the thing that gives quality to the thing being photographed. It gives it essence and characteristics.”

“The first thing that calls to you is light. After the light, it is either the gesture or the color that calls to you. If you’re lucky, you’ll have all three.  Having one of them is okay.”

“You never going to get exactly the color that is there. What you hope for is the feeling of the color that was there.”

“Try to make your pictures as specific as you can be so they don’t look like everybody else’s pictures.”

“People are more interested in pixels than they should be. They are superficially involved with the surface of their picture and they’re not going into the content of their picture. They think they will get a better picture if they have better pixels. They think that if they get it sharper, it’ll be a better picture.”

“Certain pictures you get by going after them other pictures you get by waiting.”

Answering the question “What do you care about, he said,  “I care about being excited. I care about being stimulated by something I’ve never seen before.”

He went on to say later in the interview, “I think I care about seeing things that I’ve never seen before. I mean all the notoriety and fame and money and power, whatever you get out of this thing is wonderful, but the real joy is seeing something you’ve never seen before that that’s what I’m looking for.  It could be anything. It can be a moment of love between two people or seven or in the way light falls on something or the magnificence of a color relationship that you had never, ever seen before. All of those things are what I care about and what turns me on.”

“People ask me, what can I do to be a better photographer?  One thing, other than picking your parents carefully and having enough money (he had talked about how difficult it is today [2007] to get into and be a professional photographer as costs have risen dramatically but the pay has not), is to go to museums and  look at the heritage you have visually, which is not about photography. Look at all art.”

“I don’t want to be influenced by other people. You are, of course, subconsciously and unconsciously.”

“My influences started with Ernest Haas, Robert Frank, Arnold Newman, whose “Stravinsky at the Piano“ got me into photography.  (Irving) Penn has always been an incredible, unobtainable beacon.”

“Andreas Feininger‘s book, Introduction to Photography, that was my Bible. I ate that book, day and night. That book is how I learned photography.” (I had the same book and studied it voraciously also —Dennis)

“Herbert Matter (1907-1984) was a great Swiss photographer.  Looking at him at work and watching him work and listening to him never be satisfied with his own work was part of my education..” (Maisel got to know Matter and became a mentee under him.)

“Seeing by example of his work (Matter’s), his own aim, his own demand, his own being, being his own severe critic, that was something that taught me a lot about photography.”

Asked, “What do you still feel is left for you to accomplish?” He answered, “Well, I could learn something about technical stuff. I could possibly be better technically. I could maybe have sharper pictures. I’m really not as good as I want to be.”

“I went to a shrink for many years and then he died. I then went to another shrink and she said what do you do and I said I’m a photographer and she said how good are you and I thought, well that’s interesting. I have to tell her, without lying, what I really think.  Well, I’m better than 95% that are out there, but I’m not as good as I should be, as I  want to be.”

 “If you’re not your own severest critic, you’re your own worst enemy.”  

“When I give a workshop, I drill into them all week long if you’re not your own severest critic, you’re your own worst enemy.”

“You can’t let yourself judge that you’re better (than others) by looking at other people who are not good. You always have to be the hallmark of your own work. You have to be your own severest critic, whether anybody else is worse or not, does not matter.

Here are the links to the two Luminous Landscape videos if you are interested:

Part 1

https://youtu.be/dTD-fXVuWiA?is=UEzWrQlhVrpeCu1q

Part 2

https://youtu.be/SgNM6GP6ZSw?is=RInFdaVqqq_dqw43

PART II

From Jay Maisel’s last interview (date unknown) before he died, with Vincent Versace which you can find here:

https://youtu.be/jiueEo3_t-o?is=2hmvMGMiJbKOynG0

Jay Maisel quotes (some slightly edited or paraphrased by me for clarity):

“I’m not a good technician.  I’m just good enough to get out of my own way and I was trying to convey that, among many other things, about what’s important, what’s in front of you, not what you want, not what you expect, not what you plan, but really what happened in front of you.”

He says he takes a picture when he sees something that he has “a visceral reaction to.”

Screenshot from the Versace video. (click to enlarge)

He says he’s thrown away about 2 1/2 million pictures.  “I would show my class pictures (and tell them), You must understand that I have taken more bad pictures than all of you put together. I just don’t show them and that’s one of the things you have to learn is to not show the bad stuff.”

“When the moment happens and you get it, it’s all the bad picture that came before that made you make this one good one.”

“When I gave my class, I had about 15 technical things. I gave them a sheet of paper with those things. I never talked technique again for the whole week. I think technique is overrated. I mean it’s not rocket science.  Anybody can take a picture.  It’s what you are and if you want to take interesting pictures, you have to become a more interesting person.”

“I’m interested in the kind of picture that makes you say ‘Wow,’ that’s a moment.”

When asked, “Why do you shoot? “He answered, “I can’t help it. There is so much out there.  I’m like a kid in a toy store.“

Part III 

For those of you who are interested in what gear Jay Maisel used here are some of the things he said when interviewed in 2011 by New York photographer and teacher Steve Simon.  You can find the full interview here:

https://photoeducate.com/blogs/blog/an-interview-with-the-legendary-jay-maisel 

Jay M. The first camera I ever used was a borrowed Kodak 35...and the second camera was a Kine Exakta, which I borrowed from Buckminster Fuller.  The third camera that I remember was a Miranda. I’ve been shooting since 1954. I got my first Nikon when they first made it the year the Nikon F came out, 1959. I still have 16 Nikon F’s. I’ve shot 8x10, 4x5, I’ve shot 120. I’ve shot panoramic cameras that weren’t Nikon but with 35mm it has always been Nikon. I bought a Canon once and I returned it the next day. I bought a Rolleiflex once and returned that the next day.  

Steve S. What is your Nikon system philosophy, I know your mantra to a certain degree is “one camera, one lens – you’re going to shoot more.”  But when you build a system or when you were building your system, how did you go about it?

Jay M. When I started I had four major lenses. It was a 50mm Nikon, a 90mm Macro that didn’t have anything to do with Nikon. A 180mm Olympic Sonar from Zeiss and a 300mm Sonar from Zeiss.  Those were my major lenses.  And then Nikon came out with the 180 and I bought that and other lenses as they came out.  But I used that system for a very long time. Do you want to talk about non-Nikon stuff?   

Steve S. Sure.

Jay M. I also had configured my stuff so that I could use the 180, the 90 and the 300 on my Hasselblad with a minor modification so I could switch them from one to the other. I liked the Hasselblad 1000 F’s; you could put any lens on it so I had the advantage of using whatever the hell I wanted. But I was shooting Hasselblad because I did a lot of album covers, square format.

Steve S. Were you quick to adopt new Nikon stuff as it came out?

Jay M. Oh yeah. Here’s a point. When Nikon came out with the Nikon F2, I wouldn’t get it.  Because I felt it was too much electronics in it.  And so I kept going with my F.  When they came out with the F3, Marty Forsher put his foot down and said, “I can’t repair these fucking things anymore. You have beat the shit of them.  It’s just too tough to repair them.”  

So I have about 16 Fs, I had no F2s. I have eight F3s.  About four/five F4s and one F5.  And by the time the D1 came and I was into the digital.

Steve S. Before we get into the whole digital thing and the D1 and beyond, just getting back to your original system, I think it was three or four lenses you mentioned.  As your career and your photography progressed, what were some of the other acquisitions in terms of Nikon lenses that you got that you really kind of fell in love with?

Jay M. Well, the 300 f2.8, the 600 F4, the 200 F2, the – later on the zoom lenses, the really good zoom lenses.  I started with the first zoom lens they ever made, the 43-86, didn’t like it, there was a quality about it that wasn’t as much fun.  Anyway, I’m trying to think what other lenses I loved.  Well, I’ve always loved the 50s.  

Steve S. Which 50?

Jay M. Well, I had a number of 50 1.4s, and then I had the 58mm 1.2, and I may, but I’m not sure about this, I may have had a 55 in there but I may be wrong.  I don’t know if it was.  

Steve S. There were a lot of long telephotos that you describe early on.  What is it that attracted you, I mean, I know in your work that you do use telephotos.  

Jay M. Don’t forget the 1000.

Steve S. Tell me about that.  What was it, the 1000 F-11 mirror?

Jay M. No, I had a 1000 F6.3. Nikon doesn’t know about this. They’re too young. I had a big argument with the Nikon people when they came here because I said I had a Nikon F6.3 with a diaphragm on a catadioptric (mirror) lens . 

They said no, they never made diaphragms on catadioptric lenses. 

“Want to put money on it?” I said. And when I showed it to them they said maybe you’d like to give this to our museum.  I said maybe you’d like to talk about money.  Anyway ...

Steve S. You work with telephoto lenses a lot.

Jay M. Well, you have more control with a telephoto over what you’re looking at.  As you put on a wide angle, you acquire the responsibility for a lot of real estate.

Steve S. Understood.  So you like the fact that you could compose the way you want it.

Jay M. Well, first of all I don’t use the word “compose.” Compose is only relevant if you’re controlling what’s going on in front of you. What you’re talking about is framing, and cropping.  It’s just easier with a telephoto. There is a tendency for each photographer to find a way of looking at things that he’s comfortable with.  I love what’s in the center of my pictures and the more I can get to the center, the less I’m involved in peripheral.  If I’m involved in peripheral, then I’m thinking in terms of panoramic camera.  

Steve S. I suspect when zooms started to improve it was liberating for someone like you who liked telephoto lenses.  

Jay M. Well, the real liberating thing was the recent lens they came out with, the 28-300.  That lens changed a lot of things for me. Before that I was walking around with a belly bag. My daughter said “you look like such a dork with that thing.”  

And I would very rarely change for the 24-70mm lens that was in the belly bag, because of inertia and the fact that I don’t see in terms of wide angle. I’m basically a very lazy person. I’m not pro-active, I’m very reactive. So if it’s easy for me, I’ll use it. Before that, I was working the 70-300mm and the 24-70mm.  When they came out with the 28-300mm it just made life a lot, lot better. With a 70-300, anything below 70mm, I had to change. It’s inertia. So now I shoot with 28mm; I shoot with 50mm; whatever’s appropriate. 

Steve S. I think some photographers might be surprised because both the 70-300mm and the 28-300mm are not very expensive lenses.

Jay M. No, but they’re very good lenses. Sharper than hell.

Steve S. So, they’re sharp enough for you.

Jay M. They’re not sharp enough, they’re sharper than any other lenses I’ve used.  There may be a lot of lenses that are sharper that I don’t know about, but the way I perceive it, it’s a very sharp lens.

Steve S. Tell me about your transition to Nikon digital.

Jay M. Sam Garcia forced the D1 into my hands and said “I know you don’t like it, but try it.”  And from that time on, that was it. I have shot in the last 10 years three rolls of film.  All in the first two weeks.  No going back for me.  

Steve S. So, if Sam had not insisted, you really were not that interested...

Jay M. No.  I wouldn’t have – I hate new cameras because then I’ve got to learn about them and I’m slow learning about them and fumbled fingers and left-fitted and I just don’t pick up things easily.  So every time Nikon comes out with a new camera I have mixed emotions. Oh shit, a new camera, it’s much better, but I got to learn it. 

Steve S. Right. So tell me about that early shooting experience with the D1, what was you initial reaction?

Jay M. Oh, I loved it. I loved that I could see what I was getting. I loved the fact that the lenses that I put on actually seemed longer than they were. There was nothing I didn’t like about it. I never looked back.

Steve S. We’ve come so far in 10 years. 

Jay M. Here, I’ll give you something. Without doing the math, how many years do you think it was between the first flight at Kitty Hawk and landing on the moon?

Steve S. Ahhhh....110?

Jay M. 60, 1909 to 1969.  

Steve S. Wow.

Jay M. So we do sometimes progress quickly.  I don’t measure the D1 against the D3S.  I measure the camera that Kodak gave me to use in 1992 that required them sending out a guy to carry the Diehard battery with it.  And it took eight pictures in black and white. I was always reluctant to try new equipment. I was never about equipment. Guys would love the joy of working with new equipment. I was fucking terrified of new equipment. I certainly don’t like to try anything new and I can’t read instruction booklets.

Jay M. There are other areas that I can shoot that I couldn’t shoot in before. Very simply, I can shoot at night. And I can shoot in low light levels. I guess I feel freer now than I ever have before in what I’m able to shoot. The day is much longer than it used to be because I never shot at night, unless I wanted to do a very specific thing. Because if I had film in the camera at the end of the day, a half a roll left, I wasn’t going to throw that half a roll away just on the chance that maybe I would take a shot at night.  

Steve S.  What camera are you using now?

Jay M. The D3S. Sometimes I use the focus where I hit the first thing. I don’t know the name for it. And sometimes I use it on one thing that moves around.

Steve S. Okay, the dynamic, not the 3D thing?

Jay M. Yeah.  I don’t know the names. I got a headache even talking about it. I always use auto focus.  I use auto everything until I see that it doesn’t know what I want and then I have to go to manual. I think there’s an ego among some photographers where there’s “I’m in control.” I have that ego, too, to a certain point, but I’m in control of what I want to photograph. I’m in control of what I’m going to use because I know what I want my aperture to be. As far as focus goes, if I want to focus differently than the auto, I do.  But walking along the street basically I have no idea what I’m going to be interested in. It can handle it much faster than I could. I never ever used manual focus as soon as there was an autofocus.

Steve S. So you could concentrate on your subject, rather than worrying about the technical so much.

Jay M. Yeah.

Steve S. What advice would you have in terms of building a Nikon System?

Jay M. I don’t have any advice for anybody, I’m sorry.  I’m not the advice guy on equipment. I would say shoot as much as you want and shoot with as little equipment as you can.  You walk around with a pack, all your energy goes to carrying the shit.

Jay M. At one point I said to somebody at Nikon, “why are you screwing around with all these slow lenses?  We need speed.”  And now that I have such a high ISO I understand why they’re doing the slow lenses.  Whether it was planned ahead, independent or just complete luck, I don’t know, but it has worked out for me. I now walk around with an F5.6 lens.  I never put on my 50mm f1.4.  I just like having the depth of change from 28 to 300mm.  

Steve S. What about the bokeh of say the 200mm F2...  

Jay M. Yeah, I like that. But you change as a photographer. The out-of-focus telephoto shot is a lot of fun but it’s not as much of a challenge.  And I do want to challenge myself so for me the challenge is to use a wide angle lens. The difficulty is in 35mm.  I believe that karma is telling me not to use a 35mm lens ever, because I’ve gone through about seven of them.

Steve S. Really?

Jay M. Off the tops of buildings, rolling into San Francisco Bay, lost by assistants, left in taxicabs.  There’s something about 35mm lenses that doesn’t like me.

Steve S. Got you.  They try and escape.  

Jay M. They try and escape.  

Steve S. Have you had other bad things happen where you’ve lost major stuff  while shooting?  

Jay M. Oh, I’ve lost major stuff.  I don’t have anything where they survived.  They survived dropping and stuff like that but I was photographing for Sports Illustrated on the bathing suit edition.  I was photographing Cheryl Tiegs and I was barefoot.  I was in the water with her and I stepped on a sea urchin. I had three cameras and I went down with all three.  Fortunately, I brought six with me.

Steve S. Wow. So you were okay; she was okay?

Jay M. She was fine, she laughed.

Steve S. Did you get a shot of her as you were falling?

Jay M. No, no.  

Steve S. Okay, so obviously you’ve got to have, sort of, the backup when you’re working on a job. 

Jay M. Not now.  Now I just have one camera.  

Steve S. Did Nikon surprise you with this new 28mm-300mm?

Jay M. Oh, I was just knocked apart by that. When they told me that they had a 70-300mm I was amazed. And when they told me they had a 28-300mm, well this one will probably be a compromise because, but it wasn’t. It’s unbelievably sharp.

End Notes: 

Two things of note.  First, I could find no information that he ever upgraded his camera gear from a Nikon D3s and his beloved Nikon 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6 lens to anything newer.  That makes sense as he hated new cameras.  However, toward the end of his life he became debilitated by arthritis and turned to his iPhone for the occasional photography he did.  I had and used the Nikon 28-300mm lens with my 12mp Nikon D700.  It was a ‘good’ lens, but I wouldn’t put it the category of a lens a pro would use.  But Maisel made it work—for years!

Second, it very apparent to me that Maisel understood the essence of what it takes to be a successful photographer as well as make excellent photographs.  It’s not about the gear.  It’s not about being hung up on the technical aspects of photography and it isn’t about the achievement of perfect technique.  It is about visceral feelings, instinct, luck and hard work.

If you have read this far, I hope you have enjoyed this summary of these three sources and I encourage you to visit each and watch and read them directly to learn even more about Maisel.

Join me over at my website, www.dennismook.com .

Thanks for looking. Enjoy!

Dennis A. Mook

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