SID KAPLAN

I met Sid around 1960 I think. But at some point he made a Photographic Printing Business at

10 East 23rd Street in Manhattan, N.Y.C.

I worked at that address for many years starting with Dave Sussman the owner of Marci Studio.

I stayed with Dave for about 10 years. He taught me a lot and let me have use of the studio any night

that I chose.

Then I also worked for Ralston Crawford, off and on, for perhaps 7 years.

During that time I would visit Sid and his Custom Work Darkroom. He was an instructor at the

School of Visual Arts which was also on 23rd Street a few blocks away.

Sid with daughter Ruthie.

Some of the people to be found at Sid's were students, ex students, aspiring photographers,

established photographers and famous photographers.

I would sometimes hang out at Sid's and eventually learned that he was a photographer as well

as a printer. I asked him which of his customers were the best photographers. Not counting the famous,

Robert Frank and Dwayne Michaels. He said Marvin Schwartz and Julio Mitchell. When I saw some

of Sid's personal work I told him that he was better than them. I thought so then and still think so.

Sid was always nice to me and tried to get some things to go my way like a group show at the

Union Square Gallery, Todd Weinstein's place.

One of the reasons that Sid and I got along was that we were both professional photographic

printers. Because of that I could recognize his expertise in the darkroom. We are the same age but he

started 10 years before I did. He also had professional experience that I did not have. He made really

large prints with enlarging paper that came on rolls. His darkroom often had visitors and sometimes

employees or even partners. But in the end no one was as good a printer as Sid.

I remember a young woman picture make who was incapable of reading a light meter and

under exposed negatives in a foundry or something. Sid saved the job the photographer got the credit

and then she thought she was skilled. Her editors thought she was terrific. Sid decided that all that

effort was not worth his time when he could be doing the work of better picture makers. He was right.

He would sometimes be published in photography magazines but did not hustle for publication

or galleries. It was his fans that cared enough to see that Sid got some recognition.

I once asked Sid if equipment mattered of if he thought he could work with anything. (Thinking

of Genthe's pictures of the famous San Francisco earthquake using a borrowed amateur camera). He

said both.