In 1977, when I made this picture (right) of the City Hall in Tecumseh, NE (by then re-named "Tecumseh Utilities") for my book, Dreams in Dry Places, I was unaware that 30 years earlier Wright Morris had photographed the same building (left) for his book, God's Country and My People. By 1977, as you can see, the garage door (for the town fire truck, probably) had been bricked in and the front door had been changed, and a couple of tin awings hung like the tongues of panting dogs from the first-story windows. A close look at the perspective of the two photographs will reveal that Morris stood a little closer to the building than I did, but otherwise the photographs are almost uncannily similar, both shot under the high, bright sun of a summer day, straight-on, as if the building were standing just so to have its portrait made.
Coincidence? Maybe. Some sort of spiritual correlation between two Nebraska artists? I doubt it—I'm not much of a spiritualist. But I do think that Morris and I both had a certain appreciation for the vernacular of Nebraska and this building almost screams that at you, and so perhaps it's not surprising that we both chose to photograph it.
The situation with the two photographs above, of Paris rooftops shot from the north tower of the Notre Dame, is maybe a little less complicated. It probably is just a coincidence. Alvin Langdon Coburn made his image (left) in 1913; I made mine in 1968. I didn't discover Coburn's photograph until many years later and was simply astounded by the similarities: as much by the fact that we had both made almost identical photographs as by how little these rooftops had changed in the intervening years.
I can't say for sure what Lee Friedlander (left) was thinking when he made his image, but I suspect he was up to his usual subversive tricks. Me? I think I was just trying to get everything into one frame. It's really an awfully good picture, I think.
Whenever you try to go head-to-head with Walker Evans (left) you're almost certain to come out the loser. My photo (right) was made in 2013 on one of my many visits to NYC to see my daughter and her family, and I was fully aware of the precedent. We were on the East River Ferry, passing under the Williamsburg bridge, and I thought, What the hell—give it a go! Not a bad picture really, but it's no Walker Evans, and anyway, it's the wrong bridge.
I couldn't resist. My wife and I are walking along the levee in New Orleans when we come across four ladies having lunch and the riverboat Natchez passing by. The folks in C-B's photo have brought a lovely déjeuner—sandwiches on a nice French baguette perhaps, some olives and, of course, several bottles of wine. My ladies have some kind of fast food take-out and some big Slurpees. A perfect American update to a classic photo. As Louis Pasteur was said to have remarked, "Chance favors the prepared mind."