Jerry commented on this image from the 70's:
Thank you Chester, That is a wonderful picture. It makes me look ten times cooler than reality, and features one of my favorite shirts!
Yes indeedy, the seventies were remarkable. Everybody had money, the parties were great, and the country was at peace with itself, albeit briefly.
We could all afford to appreciate each other for what we were worth.
We are lucky to have experienced the period, for those times are rare.
Let's hope that history repeats itself, and soon.
- Jerry Burchard
photo by Chester Simpson of Rock-N-RollPhotos.com
photo by Peter de Lory
Jerry talks about teaching, his cameras, and Andre Kertesz.
Video by Randy Magnus.
William Messer writes:
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to believe, but this is the first I'm learning of Jerry's dying. I so seldom checked in with Fbook in past years and am not close to the coast or Far East. It's a real blow, a hard blow. I've been playing the testimonials and interviews, and looking at the pictures. Such a life force, generous spirit, impish, embracing, instigating. That laugh. He's the guy responsible for the whole Diana/Holga/Lomography toy camera phenomenon, really. I was at the Art Institute the same three years he was department chair (1968-71). The first thing he did was forbid us from using whatever fancy equipment or pet camera we'd come with and marched us all down to Chinatown to buy 69 cent Dianas, the great leveler. Everyone using the same plastic camera meant the differences in our photographs would be our own individuality, how we see not what we use. Or the trick he pulled on the first year students of hiring more nude models than students and having them disrobe by twos among us until those of us in clothes were the abnormality (then he got naked too, and it was all over for the rest of us). He was more a catalyst then regular teacher. Maybe Yoda was inspired by him. Thirty years on I was able to get his work into an exhibition at les Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie in Arles called "Flou" (Blur) and so had some contact with him. I always hoped I'd see him again someday, we could take a walk together at night in our Hawaiian print shirts – now it will be only on film and tape. May he long be remembered and celebrated. Tears of love tonight.