The world-renowned photographer Erika Stone leaves us  the impression of a black and white heritage. However, if you take a closer look at her photos, you see how emotional, colorful and beautiful they are. It is incomparable with any colored photograph.

Images courtesy of the artist

I am sitting right in front of a historical person. I purposely sat very close to her because I was concerned that she would not understand my questions due to my Russian accent.

“Here is my bio” she says, and passes me a sheet of paper. “It’s just in case I forget some facts of my biography. I keep forgetting many things lately so a few years ago I wrote down the most important events that happened to me in my life”

— I started to wonder. 90 years is a serious age, especially when your life was full of people and events. Ms. Stone’s works can easily be found in many museums and galleries in the United States and Canada. A former stringer of Time and Der Spiegel magazine, she has become famous not only for her images of the poor areas of Harlem, Lower East side and of the immigrants in Ellis Island, but for her photographs of the greatest artists of the 20th century such as Marilyn Monroe, Marlene Dietrich, Clark Gable, Ginger Rogers, Leonard Bernstein, Tennessee Williams and many others. 

Images courtesy of the artist

Sasha Korbut: Ms. Stone, your photographs are mostly documentary or simply art?

Erika Stone: Documentary for sure. I was always interested in documentary photography. I started as a kids’ photographer and lately began to photograph people on the streets. Yes, you can see art in my pictures, but first of all they document a life and atmosphere of the past.

SK: In the documentary by Lars Gerhard “Erika Stone: New York scene” you said that you were always interested in taking pictures of poor people, homelessness and underdogs.  What attracted you to them?

ES: The fact is that I myself was poor.  I was born in fascist Germany. My father was a lawyer, but he always had a lack of jobs. My family immigrated to the United States when I was twelve years old. The main reason for our immigration was the fact that we had a Jewish background. I never knew it until I came to the United States. Our parents kept everything from us because at Hitler’s time everybody was spying and it was very easy to get arrested and they were very fearful that we would say something. I was shocked when I found out about my Jewish background. At some point I became anti-Semite when I lived in Hitler’s Germany. Therefore it was hard for me to conciliate with the fact that I have a Jewish background. But not anymore.

So we were a very poor immigrant family. As I remember, I worked all throughout my childhood. I started as a babysitter, then got more serious jobs. We always had a lack of money in our family. Thus I think it’s logical that I am more attracted to poor people and their lifestyle. 

When I became a little older I started to wander around Harlem and Lower East side and photograph poor people. There is where I found a lot of people with unconventional stories and I wanted to tell them through my photographs. I was not attracted to the posh, fancy areas such as Park Avenue. 

SK: A famous photographer Diane Arbus also lived in New York City. Same as you she used to photograph prostitutes, dwarfs, gays and the homeless. Do you find any similarities between your works and hers?

ES: I guess this is where you would see similarities.  Yes, I was interested in outsiders as well as she. For instance, I photographed one transsexual man who eventually became my good girlfriend.  Originally he was a married man with two kids, but he always considered himself a woman and eventually decided to transform. I went with him through the whole journey and saw how “he” turned into a “she.” Diane also has pictures similar to that. We both were interested in the same issues and our photos are of the same genre but still different. I even met her a few times at the parties but we never introduced ourselves to each other. By the way, she fully dedicated her life to photography. I could not do it just because I had two kids and had to work on the side in order to support my family. 

SK: You also photographed people whose name will always remain in world history. But you are saying that photographing underdogs was more fulfilling…. 

ES: That’s true. I worked for different photo agencies. Also, I was a stringer for different magazines including a world renowned one, Time. So I got to go to all of these events and parties full of celebrities and I was to photograph them. That’s how I met the majority of famous artists. It’s interesting because Leonard Bernstein and I met in a bit different circumstances. Back in that time I was working as a photographer at a famous music venue, Tanglewood, in Lenox, Massachusetts. Everyone knew me as a famous photographer from New York. But the honorarium for photographs was so low that I had to work at a restaurant not far from the music venue. One time Leonard showed up with his friends at the restaurant and sat in the area where I usually serve tables. Once I noticed him I blushed scarlet and felt so ashamed that I did not even want to enter the hall and was thinking of staying in the kitchen for the duration of the time he is in the restaurant. But eventually I decided to walk out to the main hall and approached him. When he saw me he surprisingly asked what I was doing there. I explained my situation to him. ➤

To photograph celebrities was rather a craft for me than art. However, I have to admit that some of them it was very thrilling to meet and photograph. Nevertheless, my soul has always belonged to Harlem and poor areas in Manhattan. 

SK: Do you remember your first photograph?

ES: Oh no. It probably was a portrait of a child. I started photograph at the age of fourteen. My father gave me his camera Leica and I went to the streets to shoot kids playing on the ground. Then their mothers saw my work, they liked it, and they started to ask me to photograph their kids professionally. That is how my career started. 

SK: Please complete the phrase “Photography is…”

ES: …is my life, is the reason I am living. Reason that is much more important than my kids and family. I don’t photograph anymore. My last photo camera Icon is laying down in the closet and I have not touched it for about 8 years. And I am not sure if I will ever use it again. I can no longer go to Harlem and photograph. My hands are shaking. I tried to photograph nature but it is nothing good … I am not interested in nature as I am interested in humans and their stories.

This interview was originally published in February 2015.