MPB Meets: Iconic Street Photographer Catherine DeLattre

Inspired by the work of some of the photography greats, like Eggleston and Shore, Catherine DeLattre's work captured everyday scenes in the colour-laden streets of 70s New York. In MPB's interview with the iconic street photographer Catherine DeLattre, we discuss her work, background at Magnum and return to photography.

I grew up in Monongahela, Pennsylvania, a small town near the heavily industrial area of Pittsburgh. From the 1940s through the 1970s, Pittsburgh and the surrounding towns of the Monongahela Valley were the centre of steel making in America. As a child, I loved how the fallout from the steel mills sparkled on the sidewalks like glitter. Days could be dark even when the sun was shining. Oddly, I loved dark days and I still do. They make me feel entitled to dream.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, I studied archaeology at Kent State University, in Ohio, not far from Pittsburgh. A requirement of my degree was to take a course in basic photography as a tool for research and recording in archaeological digs. I had taken pictures as a child and young adult but it was this course that inspired me to do more. Shortly after graduating, I abandoned my dreams of becoming an archaeologist. Instead, I decided to spend a year taking a black-and-white photo and darkroom courses in hopes of getting enough experience to apply to a graduate art photography program. Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, had a two-year Art Photography program and offered me a paying teaching assistantship with free tuition! While at Purdue, my main focus had been black-and-white photography, but, as the medium was changing, I became more interested in colour under the influence of my mentor at Purdue, Vern Cheek, and the contemporary colour work of 1970s photographers that included William Eggleston, Joe Maloney, Joel Meyerowitz, Jan Groover, Eve Sonneman and Joel Sternfeld, as well as John Sarkowski’s essays on the subject. By the time I graduated, I was shooting mostly in colour, mainly TLR colour negative film and some 35mm.

In the summer of 1976, I got a job teaching basic black-and-white photography and darkroom at the Main Photo Workshop in Rockport, Maine. I had my eye on New York City, but needed to save money first. I learned of a teaching position at a community college in upstate New York, applied, got the job and moved to Poughkeepsie. Soon thereafter, I was teaching basic black-and-white darkroom as an adjunct professor at three schools in the Hudson Valley—Duchess Community College, State University of NY New Paltz, and Vassar College. I was shooting film and making contact sheets, but did not print much during that time. Most of the photos I took in the Hudson Valley from the late 1970s I didn't see, until I bought an Epson scanner a few years ago. By 1979, I had saved enough money to move to New York. The city was exhilarating but intimidating. In the 1970s and 1980s, Manhattan had a high crime rate and people were afraid to go there—so rents were cheap. I found an apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan for $200 per month, then in the first week after arriving, I got a job teaching a basic black-and-white darkroom photo course at ICP.

The wonderful, colourful, eccentric, mostly elderly, women that shopped and lived in my Upper West Side neighbourhood were my first impression of NY. They looked so 'put together' with makeup, outfits, hairdos but at the same time so vulnerable. I related to that. I loved how they dressed up to go to the bank and the grocery store and run everyday errands. In 1979, I went out in the neighbourhood almost every day with my TLR Mamiya, shooting 120 Kodak colour negative film. It was an opportunity to photograph a passing generation. Shooting with a TLR, looking down at the image, making it less obvious that I was taking pictures of anonymous people going about their business. The street photography of Walker Evans, Gary Winograd, Bruce Davidson and Janet Delaney were a big influence, as well as many of the contemporary fine art photographers represented by Light Gallery in New York. Colour was integral to my images in mood and description of the people and time. Colour is still my main focus today, although in a more formal way than my street photos of the 1970s and 1980s.

In 1980, I landed a part-time job at Magnum, as a stock photo picture editor. It was there that I met Magnum photographers Inge Morath, Mary Ellen Mark, Susan Miesales, Bruce Davidson and Gilles Perez. Their energy was contagious, and their documentary work inspired me.

In addition to my part-time jobs at ICP and Magnum, I was pursuing work as a still photographer in the film business. That became my main source of income in the 1980s. By 1981, I moved to a Tribeca loft with a darkroom in lower Manhattan, where I became more focused on photography as a livelihood. I did black-and-white print work for film productions and sometimes for Magnum photographers.

In those days, Tribeca was known as 'the country', because few people lived there—mainly artists living illegally in warehouses. A few years later, as the neighbourhood began changing, my husband and I managed to buy a floor in one of these warehouses—very cheap at the time—and converted it into a living space.

Once my son arrived, life changed. I spent more time in our rural Pennsylvania country home, while my husband travelled a lot for his job as a film producer. I spent very little time doing photography during the years my son was growing up. Instead, in 1998, I opened an antique business in my country barn. It has been a destination for the many weekends New Yorkers who also moved to the area in the past 20+ years.

Whether it is archaeology, antiques or photography, for me the process of looking and finding is similar, but photography has always been on my mind. About seven years ago, I started taking pictures again. At first, using film, then I switched to digital with a Nikon D70 camera body and 24-120mm f/3.5-5.6D lens. I like the ease of it and the light weight of the camera, although I still love the look of the film. I was in a few group shows in New York over the years, but have not pursued showing my work. I have been posting on Instagram since 2016. Now, I just want to take pictures.

To learn more about Catherine's gear, read our Nikon D70 review.

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This article is part of the MPB Guide to Street Photography, our comprehensive look at how to create street photography, with camera recommendations, advice and interviews with experts.