I love this picture. I was a photojournalist, I was trying to capture what was happening, what was going on, seizing the moment.

This is taken the day he announced his candidacy for president. I gave him a copy of it, and he called it his eyes portrait. He was very young and unknown. I was about 22 or 23 years old.

I'm so glad to be here. Thank you for that introduction. I hardly recognize myself.

My father had a friend who was an acting coach in New York. As a teenager, I would go over to his house, and we would read some monologues and stuff like that. Eventually I auditioned for the performing arts high school and got accepted. I took photography courses morning and afternoon, graduated, and went to work. I started acting in Connecticut, and while I was acting there, I auditioned and got a scholarship to Brandeis University. In my second year, I started working for the photographer, taking and developing pictures of famous designers with students. I always had a camera with my telephoto lens and portraits I got from my father. My father had been an expert at gun purchase and spent time with Mussolini, had a conference with Gandhi in London and did portraits of Einstein at his home in Germany.

I was recently reading some notes between my father and Mrs. Einstein. They spoke and arranged it through her. The next picture is that of Ben Gurion. Then there is the picture of Brian Greene when he was getting an honorary degree from Brandeis. Somebody stood behind him with a black robe and I got that shot. Afterwards, I spent a week with him in New York and brought these pictures to Newsweek and Life magazine. Both Time and Newsweek agreed to use that picture that week in 1960.

Ben Gurion was prime minister of Israel. I gave a copy to Ben Gurion and he said, "I'm too old." I brought the pictures to Life magazine that week smartly. Ruth Lester told me that if I want to work for Life Magazine, I have to learn to be good at taking more storytelling pictures. That's when I became a photojournalist. The next picture shows John F Kennedy when he came to Brandeis the day he announced in Washington that he was going to run for president. He came to Brandeis to be on the Eleanor Roosevelt TV show. She was teaching at Brandeis and he wanted her approval.

It was interesting watching her that day, particularly because Kennedy wanted her approval and he stood right next to a little boy, hoping that she would say, yes, I want you to be president. But she withheld because she wanted Adlai Stevenson to be president. I went around campus watching the interaction between them and shooting pictures of her that you will see later. The next picture is Mark Segal, the artist who spent a week at Brandeis. I followed him around getting in with students and I gave him a copy of this picture, and he has such a remarkable luminosity.

I'm glad you said that, because that's one of the things that I was really looking to get. I spent a while in Iran on an archaeological expedition from Brandeis University, and there was an old beggar outside with no legs. He sat outside of our hotel every day. But he had a wonderful face. The professor pointed to me and said, "that's the kind of face that people come from miles around to gaze into because it has goodness in it." And I, I love a picture that you could have on your wall that looks at you and you can't take your eyes off it. I recently shot a friend of mine in California, and it's not the most beautiful picture of this woman, but it is something that you kind of look at and wonder who she is and what she's thinking. That's what this picture has, exactly what you said. The sweetness and the openness and the taking things in and understanding things. Beautiful.

The next picture is during the Kennedy campaign at Brandeis. Whenever Kennedy was campaigning on the East Coast from between Boston and New York, I'd take time off to go and shoot. The next picture is during the campaign, and I loved this picture. Kennedy campaign used it in New York. They blew it up about 12 feet long and it ended up on the press room wall in the White House.

Here is Jackie Kennedy when he lived in New York. Somebody would call me from her office and say, meet her here. Come take a picture of her with these students from Brooklyn who were giving her a check for the Kennedy Library. Or someone would ask me to meet her at the office of Imtech, who was the architect for the Kennedy Library and the Swedish prime minister was giving her a check on behalf of the Swedish people at the library.

When we were in the White House we called him Jack. But for a lot of people who were around in the White House then he was Mr. President. But the day before I was going into the Army, I arranged to bring some pictures to him to autograph and give some to a friend of mine who was shooting pictures for Life magazine. They were pictures of me talking to Kennedy.

I was a boy here. Salinger on the left, and Andy Hatcher, the assistant press secretary in the middle. When I was in the army, I sent some work from Fort Dix to some editors and people that I showed my work to before. The sergeant collecting the pictures saw me with Jack and he said, "Is that you with the president?" and I said, "yeah, it's me and Jack." And he dragged me in front of the entire bunk and said, "Who here can take Grossman?" And then he pointed me out to the barracks and said "you're in charge. So is that picture." I'm glad to have that picture. For other reasons. I mean, it's a wonderful souvenir for me, and Jack autographed a number of prints and photographs for me.

What you'll see later is a picture I shot on my own. This was during the campaign, but it ran on the US News and World Report immigration issue cover. I gave one to Kennedy in a leather binder and told him that I will have to send one to Vice President Johnson later. A week later, I got a call saying, "Mr. Johnson wants to know when you're getting ready to go and bring it down." I gave it to him and more pictures in his office. By the time I got back to the White House for lunch, the lobby was filled with reporters talking to someone and there was Lyndon Johnson reaching for me to shake my hands saying, "I want to thank you again for this morning."

This one is on the night of Kennedy's birthday at Madison Square Garden when Marilyn Monroe sang Happy Birthday, Mr. President. And I thought this was an unusual celebration.

That's Marilyn Monroe. That night I was backstage, and she came in with Arthur Miller's father on his arm, and she was on his arm. And she came into the Green Room backstage to wait to go on. And Jimmy Durante was there. I have a picture of Maria Callas asking for an autograph from Marilyn Monroe that night. Marilyn Monroe was so sweet you just wanted to cuddle with her. She was so sweet and so lovely. I didn't understand early on when I saw her in movies what the attraction was because I was a teenager. But this particular night, I understood much better what the attraction was and what charisma is, what personality is, what charm is. And here this woman had it.

Yes. There was no audience for this shot. This is just being watched from the Green Room where she was going to meet Durante and Carlos and Shirley MacLaine while they were waiting. When I came to New York at Brandeis, I had accumulated a three-page, three-column, single spaced list of famous people who came to Brandeis that I photographed. And I brought it to New York, showed my pictures to people, and left the list of people with magazines and newspapers.

When Kennedy was shot the next morning, I was in the White House. I remember when he was shot. We immediately called Life magazine, because by 1963, I'd been working there like an assignment for a while. They had me go around New York getting reaction shots. And the next day, as we're going into the White House, I saw people reading the newspaper in the White House lobby, and that was both of my pictures there. The Times New York Times newspaper photo editor had liked my pictures and kept him in his desk drawer and used both of them that day. I had no idea they were going to be used.

This was in 1963, in May in New York City outdoors. I love this picture. It's been used on a Time magazine cover that Time magazine had a German painter painted for the 25th anniversary of his death. I gave Jackie an 11 by 14 copy of this picture the next afternoon. The next morning Lernout, the chairman of the board of Xerox, called me and said that he was at dinner last night with Jackie and some friends, and that Jackie kept getting up from the table to go and look at this picture and said, "I think it's my favorite picture of Jack. I see a lot of aspiration in this picture."

This is Jackie at home. I was at her apartment in New York several times to take pictures. And one time her press secretary, Pamela Turner, was getting married, so they had a reception at her home. I went to take pictures and there was John, about three years old, dancing with his dog. And I took pictures of that, and it was fun.

That's Eleanor Roosevelt at Brandeis, talking to students. I bounced the flashlight off the ceiling to get a softer look. For those with the shadow under them I always started with looking for what we called Rembrandt lighting, which gave a molding to the face better. One of the things I learned was to always put in the shadow on what you don't want to show.

As I mentioned before, I saw that the night when she announced she had Kennedy. On that first time when Kennedy announced that he wanted her approval and she just resolutely stood beside him and stared forward. I wanted to see it; I had an appointment. A friend of Johnson's was doing a book about him, and the assignment I got was to get a strong but gentle photograph of Johnson. My appointment was in March, early in the morning, so I didn't bring any lights figuring there'd be plenty. Well, that morning he went instead to a hotel to make a speech. And it was the first day after the assassination that he really started coming out and saying, "I'm going to be voted president next, so stick with me." My appointment got later into the afternoon. The light was diminishing and somebody from the press office came and said, "OK, we're going to go out to the office now." We opened the door to the hallway. It was dark, but there was a little skylight overhead. There was no electric light on down by the Oval Office door. Barbara from the press office, told us not to turn on so many lights as that week President Johnson had said they were wasting too much electricity.

We went to the office back to another chair where there was a better light. I said, "Mr. President, that speech you made today when you said this at the hotel was terrific. I'm so glad you said that." And as if something snapped in him, he beamed and he sat down and just looked at me as if I was his man, and he was my man. I love that. And this is that strong but gentle picture.

There was an acting teacher named Michael Chekhov who used a phrase in his book to the actor talking about the psychological gesture. One of the things as a Life Magazine photographer and People Magazine photographer was to try to catch people making movements, talking and making a point. And in watching people, you watch for the moment for that sort of expression. President Kennedy's first press conference as president was at the State Department. There was a huge crowd of photographers on a platform in the back. And every time he I thought he looked so wonderful, and I would stop, and I would be the only snap I heard. And I say to myself, "how good, nobody else got that picture?" Then all of a sudden, every camera would go. And I didn't know why. He didn't look that great at that moment. But I put my hands in my pocket and listened and watched. And I saw that every time he raised his hand to make a gesture to talk, all the cameras went. I noticed the next day and all the newspapers, the only pictures they used were not the heroic, forward looking president. President Kennedy made the point and said that. And I learned how to use gestures, physical gestures as well as psychological gestures.

This is a picture that Ringo took. John wanted to make my hair long and combed like a Beatle, which he tried to do.

Time magazine sent me to photograph them on The Ed Sullivan Show. The next week I got a call from an English newspaper to go to Atlantic City to photograph them there. And I did. I spent a day there with them backstage in the hotel. The following year, I got a call from a London newspaper saying that their entertainment editor is going to go to Nassau with them and they are making a movie called "Help" and they wanted me to go. So I went to Nassau, spent about a couple good days there and flew back to New York, had the pictures developed in New York and showed them to Life magazine before I sent those pictures up from London. I then got an assignment from Life magazine saying, "go back to Nassau, please." Before I went back, I was living around the corner from a famous deli. And I went to the owner, and I said, "Max, I'm going tomorrow to the Beatles. Can I bring them a salami or something?" He gave me a salami and some stuff to take to Nassau for the Beatles. I spent another week with them. Then I went to Austria with them. And while I was in Austria., George said, "Henry, when we're in London, would you come and take some portraits of me with Andy?" So, when we got to London, I went to their house and took some pictures of them, which you'll see here. Then we went to John's house and I took some more pictures there.

Every time I was in London, I would call the Apple Office and let George knew that I was there. An interesting aspect of that was that one time I went over, and I saw this instrument on the wall and I said, "George, what is that?" He reached up and took it down and started trying to tune it. And he said, it's a guitar, but I don't know how to play it and I don't really have a teacher to teach me how to play it. And I looked at him and I smiled and said, "George, you make a lot of money, you can probably afford to find the finest guitar teacher in India and bring him here to spend the summer with you." The next year when I went to George's house and knock on the door, he's barefoot in Indian clothes and he looks down on my shoes and said, "Henry, wouldn't you like to come in and take your shoes off and you'd become more Indian in thinking?" I love that. There was at one point I was learning from them.

Yes, but not specifically Yoga Nanda. I had a tape recorder in those days. And one time when I was over at George's house, I asked him if I could turn on the tape? We started talking for about 20 minutes on tape where George was talking about philosophy and what was this kind of thing and its background. And I realized that although I had five years of higher education, George was way ahead of me in terms of being educated, in terms of philosophy, who he was and what world thinking was.

That is Seventeen magazine. Notice the shadow under the eyes that was always started by lighting. I had one light with me, and this was in Washington. I set him up. There was a 17-year-old girl interviewing him. This was when I was hired to get pictures for his side of the campaign. This was about a month before he was shot. I think it was in Louisville and we started moving up early in the picture.

That is Jimmy Carter on my Grand Hotel vacation eve, I was asked to be the photographer for many of these conferences in Oslo. Jimmy was on the plane and came around and shook hands with everybody on the plane. Mandela was also at the Hague conference, and I had asked him, "could I get a portrait made to notice the shadow under the nose and go to that lighting in a hotel room." He said "yes." I had about five minutes to get this picture and that was it.

The snow. No. This was in Wales. I got a call from Time Magazine to go to Wales Time Magazine cover story on the Beatles. I rode up to Wales, took pictures with them, and then I took another picture of them and their girlfriends. And that day, Brian Epstein died, and we had to get back. I offered a ride to Paul and his girlfriend. We rode back for about six hours in the limousine. I was not pumping him as a journalist, just offering a companionship as a friend.

Now, that's John. And I love that picture that was taken in Austria after Nissel. But what I like about it is in my book about the Beatles and the sorting out, this is the first picture that we ran across of John. I said to the publishers, Brian and Kevin, "I don't like that picture." Look at that suspicion in the picture. And they said, "no, no. That was the first moment he met you." Now, let's look at this one. There you see a different picture. This was at breakfast in Nassau early in the morning. I went to breakfast with them, and George had just gotten up and came in; and I said, "I don't usually do this, but I've got to take a picture because I never saw you looking this way." For me, this is what an actor playing Hamlet should look like.

I love that one. That's Meryl Streep. I sent it to TV Guide. I was looking for a cover portrait. I shot the portrait, and then she let her hair down. And instead of using the flash for the portrait lighting, the sunlight was streaming off the floor and I shot it. And that's just a picture. I love this picture.

That's a strange image in San Francisco of Pavarotti. I met the Mafia when I was visiting with a friend who happened to be in San Francisco at that time. I went to his hotel room here in the city in New York where he was staying, and he was cooking for about 10 friends, and a picture of him carrying on a big plate of spaghetti that he had cooked. His friend Giuseppe DiStefano was there, among others, and it was just marvelous. And then we became friends.

There was a gala being broadcast. And I went with him. I went backstage to see how it was going. Pavarotti was there and he was very nervous and said, "oh, my friend, now I make a terrible, terrible mistake to sing in this area here." And I said, "no, Luciano, you're going to be terrific." Just then the loudspeaker came on for Pavarotti to go on the stage. And he went out and sang. And I saw the nervousness. But he came to the high note, and he grabbed it. I ran around to the Green Room to watch TV and it was terrific. I couldn't see any of the nervousness that I saw when I was watching backstage.

I was at the March on Washington speech. I was near Martin Luther King when he made the speech. But at that time, I didn't know the importance of Martin Luther King. It was at that event that he made this speech of "I have a dream." So, I totally focused on a lot of the movie stars and Bob Dylan from Hollywood. I was trying to get them a couple of pictures of my movie at the audience because I was covering the event and I have a whole score, a huge pond filled with people listening to the speech. It was when I got home, and as in so many events, I had to wait till the next day and or the evening to watch on television to see what I should have known and what I needed to know about who that person was and what the importance of that event was.

The first one of Elizabeth Taylor with Richard on the screen. That was the day they got married. They sent me to Montreal, to Toronto, where he was appearing in Hamlet. And they said, we're done here. And I said, "I've got to go everywhere you go, because of Life Magazine, and you're going to get married." And they laughed at that. But I spent two weeks with them. I am going everywhere they go. And finally, they called me and another photographer from London. They said, "we want to get married, but we don't know how to get out of the hotel without the press." So, Bill and I went downstairs and found a way, and on their promise of being able to photograph the wedding, we left the night before, went to Montreal and photographed the wedding. And at this point, when she looked at him, I said to her afterward, "Elizabeth, as beautiful as you are, when you look at Richard, you are so much more beautiful."

This was a black opera singer, Marian Anderson in Central Park, an important Latin America. I usually get his Christmas cards and I had to sneak my portraits in to get his passport pictures. The next picture is just that first time he is going to be appearing at Carnegie Hall. And there's me in the mirror taking a picture of me with him practicing before going on stage. The next picture is of Maria Callas when she gave her finale at Carnegie Hall. I auditioned for her master class. I was supposed to be in it, but I was absent due to an assignment elsewhere.

That is Thelonious Monk, a jazz musician. This was shot on the street outside of his home on West End Avenue. But this is again going for the shadow under the nose to define the face. And I found a substance in my files hiding until my son, who was a musician, asked me, Dad, don't you have any jazz musicians? And I thought I found this one. I love this. I made it.

He was president of England for a while and left advocated to become her husband. Time Magazine sent me to this that night. After I saw this, I shot this picture. There was a screening of this show of a movie with him and a picture of him entering India on an elephant, huge acclaiming crowd.

Okay, one other picture. That one was a suggestion for the Metropolitan Opera at the Grand Hotel closed. I got in. I was a member of the company, and this was as an officer in Ariadna AppNexus at the Metropolitan Opera. I was a principal tenor the next year. Oh, this is me with Pavarotti.

I'm of an age to be compromised too quickly if I got caught with the Covid. So, I'm staying in. I am in touch with people. A friend of mine from California got married last week. She was married in Central Park. And I watched it on Zoom. This Covid thing is frightening.

Thank you. I love your phrase appreciative inquiry. I've always been interested in people. I want to know. I want to know who people are, what was their background, what made them what? What pushed them into being who they are and expressing things, and creating what they created. I've been lucky to meet creators of the century on so many levels. Your appreciative inquiry is so important to us as well, and the people that you are teaching at Columbia.

I love it, but I haven't really taken pictures. One of the things I've been doing just for fun is watching the opera from the Meadow Opera. On occasion, I'm taking pictures, screenshots of an opera and watching friends. I'm not going out taking any pictures now. Because for all intents and purposes, I didn't anticipate it. But I am retired.

I thank you for that. Your assistant had a project that he was doing, going around photographing people, asking about what makes them. What a wonderful project. What I was going to say, somebody is asking about photographing anything in your apartment. I look around you, there's something you can see when you're locked into a space, you can start seeing little pieces, up close of different things in a different way and you'll see different patterns. I'm looking at a fan and some pencil sticking up over here. And I say, wow, I can do that close, you are able to explore your creativity up-close on other things that are around you.

How do you feel about painters? What kind of painters?

It goes through them. Pages captured more. The reality is a metamorphosis through them more completely than it is through photography. Photography catches what's there and is impelled by what makes you focus on that particular thing. Painters explore. It's different.

The human eye and heart and mind, that's what a painter does, what any artist does. An artist sees not only what the situation is, but what the situation is becoming and all the connections around it. By the way, if somebody wants to contact me, it's Grossman.Henry@gmail.com. And Dana , I hadn't thought of teaching, but I love talking about the photographs. So maybe I'm teaching that way.

I have been blessed. Central message. I never aimed to be the greatest photographer, to be the greatest singer. I tried to fulfill myself in whatever I was doing as fully as I could, and just when I started singing, I thought maybe I could be good enough for Broadway. Then I got good enough. And then I got better. Go on to become an opera singer, photographer, taking pictures to remember people and to remind myself of who people were and then went on from there. I didn't aim. I didn't have a goal to be something. I tried to fulfill myself as best I could. I am blessed. I thank God for that. I'm aware that I've done well, and somebody up there likes me.

Thank you very much for having me. It's a pleasure.