New York City street photographer Gerard Exupery joins the podcast to talk about his 40 years of street photography adventures in the Big Apple.

Gerard Exupery has been a New York City Street Photographer for 40 years.

He fell in love with photography when his father helped him take his first picture with a Rolleiflex at age eight. From then until now, it is the only thing Exupery has ever wanted to do.

Growing up, he worked for his local and high school newspapers doing sports photography. In 1973 a friend’s mother showed him a copy of the catalog from the Diane Arbus exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum, and it changed his life. Exupery attended the School of Visual Arts and studied with Lisette Model at The New School.

His first job was driving a New York City taxi to pay for classes. He has worked as a fashion photographer’s assistant, a custom printer, motorcycle mechanic, oil rig roustabout, audio engineer, video engineer, and line producer. Every day he carried his camera with him and used it.

Until 10 years ago, Exupery had never shown his work publicly. When he discovered the photography website Flickr, he began to post his pictures. Due in part to the interest he received there, he began to promote his photography and writing.