Hey, I'm Jeffrey Masters, and we are ticking off our brand new season with one of the great

photographic innovators of the last century, that is Dwayne Michaels.

Now, Dwayne did two big things that changed how we think about what is possible in a photo.

One, he shot scenes, different narrative sequences of photos that all told a story.

This was the 1960s, 1970s, and doing this, it was unlike anything else anyone was doing back then.

And then, two, Dwayne would write by hand near and around the photos.

This was not just the title, but full messages.

Here, for example, there is a famous photo of a young couple and they're sitting on the

bed holding each other.

They look happy, they're smiling, and you think, oh, okay, that's

really great. But then you read the message. It says this, this photograph is my proof.

There was that afternoon when things were still good between us. And she embraced me. And we were

happy. It did happen. She did love me. Look, see for yourself. And suddenly that previously

happy photo, it's flipped on its head. As you'll hear, Dwayne never learned any of these established

rules of photography, and so it was easy to abandon them. He shot commercially for Vogue,

for Gap, as well as creating work that appeared in museums and fine art spaces.

You'll hear us talk about that work, about his lifelong partnership with Fred Gorey,

the two were together for 57 years, and I think you'll like this.

In all my years of doing this show, Dwayne is the only person I've ever talked to who has

threatened to slap me in the middle of the interview.

So get excited for that.

And then lastly, we have a bunch of Dwayne's work on our substack.

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