I just completed a 25-year photographic project entitled Run To The Sun - Pamplona's Fiesta de San Fermín, a 315-page large format book published by MasterArts Press LLC. The book is available at Amazon and also at www.egartorre.com, an Internet bookshop in Madrid that specializes in taurine books and calls the book "probably the best graphic book ever done on the fiesta". For a preview of photos and the various contributing authors look at the publisher's website, www.masterartspress.com or search either my name or the title at www.amazon.com and see some of the rave reviews of the book. A Spanish version is also available entitled FIESTA.
I began serious photography in college and have managed to continue on that course for most of the past 30 years. A lot of that has to do with my father and an older brother, Marc, who both contributed to my choice of careers. My father Gino by instilling in me a sense of doing what I want in life, and my brother for opening up photography as an artistic field of expression.
I think hanging around Greenwich Village as a kid during the Bohemian years of the 1950's had something to do with it. Gino went from a successful film director to a struggling painter who was getting supreme satisfaction and some recognition from doing what he wanted - I went from suburban Westchester to Greenwich Village for weekends and marveled at the café scene. I also liked the travel - watching the people on the train and the Hudson River landscapes out the window.
Some years later my dual-life took on a different twist. I took off for a New England prep school while Gino took off for southern Spain and I became Trans-Atlantic at the age of twelve. School years in America where I had to study Latin in a jacket, chinos and a tie and summers in Spain where I got to see Gypsies living in caves outside Granada and shoot corks off tooth picks with a BB-gun in the feria of Malaga.
At thirteen I also had the amazing experience both of seeing my first bullfight and drinking 1-peseta glasses of vino tinto.
My quest for the skills and techniques needed to be a professional has taken me down a twisted path of self-learning. I worked several summers doing a personal study of prehistoric cave art. The rest of the year I photographed sewing machine parts and place settings for a commercial catalog house in Manhattan. From industrial slide shows to photojournalism, the road has been long and diverse. And always fun and personally rewarding.
After living seven years in Manhattan's Soho district when rents were cheap I packed my bags and left for Spain to work with a correspondent of a Spanish magazine closely resembling the Time Magazine format. I spent a year working for free on a Manhattan give-away paper and thought I was ready to break into photojournalism. At 27 I was ready to put to the test and go out on a limb to decide if lucky breaks do occur if one hangs in there long enough and is committed to what you want to do. Enough knocking on doors in Manhattan.
I spent my savings traveling and shooting, but I was working and I also getting published and I liked the work and the life. Opportunities did open up as I concentrated on working day-to-day assignments. I joined a small magazine agency in Madrid and became their photographer in the south of Spain. The stories took on a larger dimension - from local farmers and the disco scene to flooded villages, earthquakes and "terrorist" assaults on the Costa Del Sol.
I moved to Madrid and joined UPI (United Press International) and then moved to Brussels to work on their European, Middle East and Africa picture desk.
After covering the War in Lebanon in 1982 I transferred to Israel early in 1983 as UPI's Chief Photographer in Israel and the Occupied Territories. In 1985 I became the Chief photographer for the Reuters news agency. A job I held until 2001. I am currently freelancing and living in a rural setting on the outskirts of Jerusalem.
I had the opportunity to cover not only Israel and the Palestinian Authority for the past 20 years, but also documented many overseas stories. These have ranged from famines and conflicts in Ethiopia, Sudan and Somalia to the Iraqi Scud missile attacks against Israel during the Gulf War, and the War on terror in Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf. I also covered extensively the events in the Middle East including the Palestinian 'Intifada', or uprising against Israeli occupation that began late in 1987, and the highs and lows of the current Israeli-PLO peace process, begun in 1993 with the Madrid peace talks.
PHOTO AWARDS / EXHIBITIONS
1999
11th Visa Pour L'Image. .Perpignan, France. "Until Peace" 15 years of coverage of the Israeli - Palestinian conflict.
1999
2nd Place. General News. Pictures of the Year (POY), University of Missouri, USA.
1998
"Capturing Reality" The Tennessee State Museum. Nashville, Tenn. USA Group exhibit.
1998
"Semana Negra" Gijon, Spain. II Encuentro Internacional de Fotoperiodismo. Also on photo jury for awards.
1997
Solo exhibition - 65 color photographs from Fiesta de San Fermín. Salon de San Fermín Fotografica. Pamplona, Spain.
1996
Award of Excellence. Pictures of the Year (POY), University of Missouri, USA. General News
1995
Award for bullfight photograph. Primer Certamin "Villa de Bilbao" de Fotografia Taurina.
1994
Pamplona, Spain. Group exhibit sponsored by Casa Cultura, Ayuntamiento. "Rojo, Blanco y Negro". 15 color photographs.
1993
Pictures of the Year (POY), University of Missouri, USA: First Place Sports Action - Pamplona encierro picture, "Panic at Day Break". Award of Merit - Pamplona encierro picture, "Just For The Lark Of It".
1993
IV Concurso Periodistico Internacional 'San Fermin', Pamplona, Spain. First Prize Single Best Picture - "Panic at Day Break". First Place Photo Series - "Goring on Santo Domingo".
1993
The Eternal Beauty of Jerusalem - International Photo Competition. Two honorable mention awards.
1990
Ami Steinitz Gallery, Tel Aviv. Group exhibit. Crossing the Green Line - Pictures from the Intifada
1981
World Press Photo, Amsterdam. Honorable Mention. Spot News.
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