The cover of the first issue of the Telegraph Avenue Street Calendar. . . It’s hard to believe it’s over 30 years ago (°sigh°). I remember at the time, Duncan was taking all these great photos of the Telegraph street characters with his cheap little 30-dollar Kodak Instamatic camera. And I thought it would be fun to do something with them. So I put some of the photos together as a calendar and xeroxed off 100 copies. I figured if nobody wanted to buy them, I could just give them away to my friends as a Christmas present. . .
By the second issue we were selling 2,000 copies, and me and Duncan were getting featured on the front pages of newspapers, and on national TV shows. We ended up putting out 15 issues of the Telegraph Avenue Street Calendar over the next 15 years. And I went from documenting the street scene, to being engulfed by the street scene, and maybe even consumed by the street scene.
It was a wild ride. And if I could, I’d go back in time and do it all over again. ….
Ace Backwords Photos 