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Getting Carl De Keyzer a coffee

I had a really good day today. Well, actually yesterday since it's past midnight. Work was good fun, I helped to frame some prints for an exhibition when Carl De Keyzer came into the office. He just arrived in New York since he'll be working in the States for a month and had to pick something up. When he came over to say hello I introduced myself and told him that we've been e-mailing about two months ago when I purchased his 1989 book "Homo Sovieticus" on e-bay. Nice little story on this purchase on e-bay:

I was trying to get a copy of this book for a while. Couldn't figure out where to get one since it's out of print until someone offered a signed and new example on e-bay. I was the only bidder and managed to get it for just 15 Euro. Just a minute or two before the auction was over I mentioned that this guy also sold a dual processor Power Mac G4 with an Agfa A3 flatbed-scanner. Hm, sounds like this computer would well fit into a photographers studio... At that time I also mentioned that the seller was from Gent, Belgium and I knew that Carl De Keyzer runs his studio there... And the e-bay username of the seller was "kecmagnum"... I once read a book written by David Hurn and Bill Jay called "On being a photographer". David Hurn mentioned in his book that the photographers code of Magnum starts with the first two letters of the photographers last name followed by the first letter of his first name. I was not sure but everything pointed towards Carl De Keyzer himself as the seller of this book on e-bay. After I won the auction I send an e-mail to the seller asking where he got this signed and new example from. And guess what. I received an e-mail from Carl De Keyzer five minutes later telling me that it was not hard to sign your own books if being the author.

Anyway, I was honored to get him a coffee from this very good and cheap (relativly cheap for Manhatten) Cuban restaurant on the other side of the street. Nice to meet him in person since I like his work a lot. You may want to view his incredible website here or pictures of the book I bought at the auction here. I can also recommend reading David Hurns book "On being a photographer" which I found rather interesting. This book can be found here.

I left work at about 6.30pm and headed up north to the International Center of Photography which is about 20 blocks away from work to get a schedule of workshops they offer. Wow, they've got such a well sorted book store there! Since I was near Times Square then I walked over to take some pictures. I ended up taking photographies of tourists who took their pictures in Times Square. That was not too serious but good fun anyway! Photos to be posted later.

Posted by Martin Fuchs on May 7, 2005 01:00 AM