THE ART OF ATTENTION
Curiosity turns portraits, objects, and places into discoveries as Len Irish reflects on a life shaped by the camera’s attention.
August 9, 2026
INTERVIEW
PHOTOGRAPHY Len Irish
INTERVIEW Karen Ghostlaw
Photography has often been described as an act of observation, but the most memorable photographers understand that seeing is only the beginning. Beyond description lies interpretation. Beyond likeness lies presence. The photograph becomes less a record of what stood before the camera than a conversation between what was visible and what was felt.
Looking across the work of Len Irish, one begins to recognize a practice shaped less by genre than by a sustained way of seeing. Portraits, landscapes, still lifes, dancers, symbolic studies, and abstract constructions may appear to move in different directions, yet they are held together by the same thoughtful attention. His photographs do not rely on a single visual signature. They reveal a mind drawn to presence, intuition, memory, and the threshold between what is visible and what is felt.
Born in Omaha, Nebraska, Len studied photography at ArtCenter College of Design before establishing himself as a portrait photographer in New York City. His career brought him into contact with remarkable individuals including Muhammad Ali, James Brown, Oprah Winfrey, and B.B. King, yet his practice has continued to expand beyond portraiture into still life, landscape, abstraction, movement, and personal explorations of symbolism and memory.
What becomes compelling is not only the variety of subjects, but the consistency of inquiry behind them. Across his works, meaning is rarely fixed. It emerges slowly through relationship, structure, atmosphere, and the viewer’s willingness to look more closely.
There is an honesty in Len’s photographs that does not need to announce itself. It can be found in the restraint of a portrait, the solitude of a landscape, the careful arrangement of opposing elements, or the imagined space where abstraction opens into feeling. His work invites curiosity rather than certainty, allowing the unexpected to become part of the discovery.
Rather than asking Len Irish to explain individual images, this conversation looks at the deeper ideas that move through his work as a whole. What follows is a reflection on seeing, memory, intuition, and the creative process of an artist who has spent decades using the camera not only to describe the world, but to remain open to where each photograph might lead.
“Living and working in New York shaped and refined my photography. It didn’t give me my personal vision but it rather helped me discover it. At that time, the daily exposure to the arts was overwhelming and everywhere in New York.”
IN CONVERSATION WITH LEN IRISH
Before photography became a profession, a practice, and a way of moving through the world, who was Len Irish? I’m interested in the life before the camera, the early curiosities, influences, and moments of recognition that began shaping the way you looked at people, objects, places, and images. How did the path toward photography first open for you, and when did you understand that it would become more than something you did, but something through which you could think, question, and express yourself?
My early years were shaped by life with my single parent mother. Most mornings she was up and off to work, from there my day was mine to do as I pleased. There weren't many adults or kids around so I used that time to walk the streets. I would go from bar to bar asking strangers to shine their shoes or walking the alleyways where I could satisfy my curiosity by going through the trash that various businesses were throwing out.
Years later when I found myself clearly committed to photography, the first thing I did was go back out onto those streets, alleys and bars - I had the same curiosity although with a new purpose. I was ready to ask strangers for their portrait and I was free to pick any object from the trash for discovery with my camera. It was at this point in my life at the age of eighteen that I first called myself a photographer. It was a time of no defining purpose, a time of freedom to see and discover with a camera without any intention or specific aspiration - a time to just see and feel the camera. All the while, I was without any exposure to the arts.
You have built your career in New York, a city where photography has a long history and where visual culture is constantly shifting. How has living and working there influenced the way you see? Has New York sharpened your attention to people, performance, objects, architecture, and the small theatre of daily life, or has its influence been more subtle, shaping your discipline, pace, ambition, and relationship to the image over time?
Living and working in New York shaped and refined my photography. It didn’t give me my personal vision but it rather helped me discover it. At that time, the daily exposure to the arts was overwhelming and everywhere in New York. One day it was dance photographs on billboards that caught my eye, fashion ads on construction site walls, Keith Haring in the subway, Penn and Avedon in the museums and one of my personal favorites, the postcard racks in the parks where I started my collection.
Then there were the photographers…Robert Mapplethorpe, Duane Michals, Guy Bourdin, Helmut Newton and so many others. If they didn't live in New York, then they infiltrated it through magazines and ads. I would spend money I didn’t have, to get a French Vogue. I was endlessly curious about all the possibilities - portraiture, still life, fashion, fine arts, etc… this all added up to a many years long Master Class in seeing.
Looking across your portfolios, the subject changes dramatically, yet the questions seem remarkably consistent. Whether photographing a portrait, a landscape, or a simple object, what is the photograph trying to reveal that wasn't visible before you and raised the camera? Do your strongest photographs begin with intention, or do they emerge from the surprise of recognizing something you hadn't anticipated?
Let me address that last part first. I begin with intention…. it sets things in motion. I follow that intention until it falters (as it almost always does). The intended image starts to reveal that it isn’t as interesting as I thought it would be, i.e. the lighting is uninteresting, the weather isn't cooperating…. so many things can fail that would stop one from continuing. This is the normal outcome I find. Then, however, the original intention now switches to intuition and curiosity becoming the new driving intention. It's time now to get my head out of the process and start seeing & listening with my eyes.
To answer your other question “What is the photograph trying to reveal that wasn't there before?” It's a difficult question to answer, maybe this explains it… I have a photograph of a vase. The vase itself is interesting, Japanese, “Big Belly” style. I wanted to discover what it could share of itself in a photo. The vase and I are having a conversation with each other. My first intentions for the vase were basic. Sitting on its base, rotating for the angle. Positioning it in a different light. Ok, it kind of works, but something isn't satisfying about the photograph. I walk away from my original intention to maybe return to it another time.. The vase was sharing its basic aesthetic - interesting, but the image didn't go beyond. Months later I came across the vase photos in my library. One of the images in the files had been switched to a horizontal from the vertical. There it was… everything I couldn’t see until it was given to me to see as a horizontal. It is now an abstract large mouth vessel yelling at the world, with a beautiful light and wonderful tones (in my humble opinion). I started with that initial intention that we spoke about earlier and it failed and the image evolved into the photograph I was hoping for.
There remains one interesting aspect to this vase photograph for me. What triggered my overwhelming response to that horizontal version of the photograph? Why didn't I perceive it as just a photo that needs to be turned upright? The vase seemed to have disappeared yet all that is there is just that vase.
Many photographers become known for one genre. Your work moves comfortably between portraiture, still life, landscape, dance, abstraction, and symbolic imagery. Have these varied bodies of work been different paths toward the same destination, or has your practice been shaped by following unexpected turns, allowing curiosity and intuition to reveal the next chapter rather than planning it?
I was never satisfied with repeating any photographic look, lighting or idea. Needless to say, I did repeat myself from time to time even though the goal was to create something new with every assignment. This included different subjects, lighting styles, locations etc. I found Irving Penn’s versatility to be a great example. It became known as part of my professional profile that I was interested in a wide variety of assignments. I think it started with that same original curiosity I had as a kid roaming the streets looking for something new.
Looking through your portraiture, I was struck by how rarely you rely on direct eye contact to establish a connection with the viewer. Yet the emotional presence of your subjects is unmistakable. Rather than asking them to meet our gaze, you seem to allow the connection to emerge from something much deeper. What is it you're looking for beyond the eyes, and how do you know when you've found it?
Shooting with direct eye contact with my subjects was truly one of the great pleasures I enjoyed in my portraiture work. I have always been on the shy side so looking through a Hasselblad viewfinder allowed me to hide and at the same time make eye contact through the viewfinder… plus it was confrontational to photograph someone head on, it created an “in your face” experience for the viewer. Not all of my portraiture was shot in that style, at times a softer portrait that didn’t have direct eye contact could be appropriate. These were and still are in-the-moment decisions.
The emotional expression tended to be decided in the editing process. I never looked for it at the time of shooting the portrait, people are constantly changing from moment to moment during a portrait session. I mostly focused on posing - the positioning of the body, head or hands can suggest an emotion and then I would follow that up in the edit, looking for the image that stands out. How do you know when you find it… hard to say, you just do. This is the highly personal part of portraiture, picking the ‘frame’.
Rather than simply placing a figure within a setting, you seem to be creating a conversation between the person and the space they inhabit. What does that dialogue represent for you? Are these architectural frames meant to suggest identity, memory, strength, vulnerability, transition, or something that resists definition altogether?
I took the background in my portraiture work very seriously, it was always the first problem to solve. The background created, as you said, “a conversation between space and subject.” The focus, the light, the graphics, the overall feel and tone of the background all came first. The decisions made about backgrounds were centered around “do I love the look,” never about any concrete meaning (I shouldn’t say never).
I could be shooting today and have a flashback to a photograph from some time in my past, mine or someone else's, and I will change how I take that photo today.
In your still lifes, the objects never seem to exist in isolation. They become part of a carefully considered visual conversation where focus and blur, light and darkness, texture and form, color and space all contribute equally to the image. Are these relationships the true subject of the photograph, with the objects simply becoming the vocabulary through which that conversation takes place?
I have always loved shooting still lifes (again, Irving Penn). Penn’s still life photographs are very theme oriented. My intention with still life photography leans towards the abstract. In my still lifes nothing needs to relate to anything except everything needs to relate to the totality of everything else. The box that Apple products come in, they're so immaculate, perfect white empty containers ready to be introduced to a new purpose. Addition and subtraction is the process, knowing when to stop is the challenge.
Looking across decades of photographs, do you recognize recurring visual ideas that only became apparent with time? Has returning to your archive ever led you to reinterpret your own work, inspiring new directions or uncovering connections you hadn't previously seen? I'm also curious whether photographs you once dismissed have found new significance, reminding you that sometimes the images we question the most become the ones that endure.
All of the above are correct, it seems photographs are subject to a form of quantum entanglement. The creation of one instantly changes all of the others. Looking back on past work however can seem like nothing really has changed. My experience has been that looking through very early work often shows the same interest and curiosities. With that said, time does change perspective. So this forward / backward looking is what really adds up to the photography I take today. I could be shooting today and have a flashback to a photograph from some time in my past, mine or someone else's, and I will change how I take that photo today.
Throughout a lifetime of making photographs, there are often people who quietly change the course of our journey. They introduce new ideas, challenge our thinking, open unexpected doors, or simply encourage us to trust our own vision. Looking back, who have been those people for you, and how did they influence not only your photography, but the way you see the world? Finally, if a young photographer were sitting across from you today, what guidance would you offer as they begin discovering their own path?
Again I’d like to answer that last question first. I like the quote "I don't want to belong to any club that would accept me as one of its members," I don’t want to be a part of a classroom that would have me as a teacher. I have had moments where I have been asked to speak to student level groups. I think I left every single one thinking I wasn’t very good at that. I’m not a big believer now in my ability to inspire others, particularly the young as I don't consider myself a great teacher. Speaking to a young photographer can go both ways, disillusionment or inspiration… too dangerous for me to fail at.
As far as who has inspired me personally, they were mostly photographers I experienced through magazines. I felt I could read their minds through their photographs. It was too late to begin assisting, I had to just start doing it. So it was magazines where I found my teachers and my inspiration.
Every photographer has their trusted tools, and readers always enjoy a glimpse behind the scenes. What is currently in your camera bag, and is there one camera or lens that has become an extension of the way you see the world? Are you someone who believes equipment influences vision, or does the photograph always begin with the photographer rather than the camera?
I would say all photographs start and remain sourced from a photographer’s experiences. Who are these photographers who travel out onto the ice of Antarctica to photograph a polar bear. God bless them! So thankful there are photographers with this courage and purpose. I’m just not one of them.
Your question about equipment remains an age old one. The young photographer asks “What camera do you use? Maybe I can take that photo if I use it too.” I had that thought myself early on. Guess what, I found out what camera it was, I bought it and I created a long career with it. It's the right question, keep asking… until you have the answer and keep in mind more than likely you will have to find that camera that's right for you.. What I’m trying to get across is that equipment matters. You do see through this thing. If you can’t see what you want to see through your camera, you're not going to achieve the photograph you want. So important, how it feels in your hands when you're just walking and looking. So important, the format through the viewfinder. My vision was always at its best when I was working with a Hasselblad and its square format, 150mm lens and F8. So young photographer, I gift it to you… run with it.
While photography has clearly been a lifelong companion, we all have other passions that shape who we are. Beyond making photographs, what occupies your heart and mind? What inspires you, challenges you, brings you peace, or simply makes you happy? How do these parts of your life influence the artist you become each time you pick up the camera?
Oh such a sad answer… that young boy that I have mentioned a few times earlier tried to be good at anything. Nothing went my way, I had a great desire but no talent with anything. When I discovered photography I knew immediately I would eventually be good at it. Seriously, I was filled with confidence for the first time in my life. I didn't need anything else. Then… along comes love and marriage and the baby carriage. The sad part to this answer, some might say, other than family, I don't have other interests. There just isn't enough time for anything outside of family and photography. Printing and framing is my obsession now and I will soon be publishing a book of my recent photographs titled, “No Unifying Concept.”
Finally, if there is one question you've always hoped someone would ask about your work but never has, what would it be, and how would you answer it?
I would like to reverse that question… I have never before had anyone share their comprehensive review of my photographs. It was informative and enlightening to read yours, I do think you are correct in much of how you see my work and I thank you for the kind words.
