BACK THEN, there were a lot of layers to Miami. My grandparents had moved down there after retiring – they were immigrants from Russia who had lived their life in New York City, they came for sun, beaches, warm winters.
I was 22 years old, already in photography school up in Massachusetts. My grandfather had just died, so I went down to visit my grandmother. I wonder if I was really down there to visit my grandmother, or whether I had a real thought of, ‘Let’s photograph this place.’ I think it was probably twofold.
That’s because Miami was totally photographic. These people would dress up. There was a big Jewish enclave in the area that’s now South Beach. They all retired and moved into these little Art Deco hotels – though one didn’t call them that at the time. But these people would dress up to go to the beach! They’d have their hair done, their beach outfits, their bathing suits – for them it was a social scene. I immediately recognised it as something I could make some good pictures of.
At that time, I had been reading the Diane Abrus monograph, the big book of all her great photos that came out in 1972, so I was digesting that. She has a number of pictures of freaks, but also a number of pictures of old Jewish people. She was Jewish, so was I. I went, ‘I know where there are a lot of old Jewish people, down in Miami Beach!’ I think I was trying to be a little bit Diane Arbus, a little bit Gary Winogrand, a little bit Lee Friedlander, a little bit Robert Frank. I was spitting out these influences that I had. Miami Beach was like going to Disneyland for a photographer. What ride do I want to be on today? The beach? The dog tracks? The seaquarium? The hotels? It was easy.
As a photographer, you just walk. I would do that along the beach more often than not, because people were sort of sitting ducks at the beach. But on the day I took this picture, I must have been off taking a walk a couple of blocks away – inland. I remember, I was near this parking lot. This lady just sort of came from nowhere – sweeping across with her little dog. My memory of it is that I chased her across the parking lot. It wasn’t as if I chased her like a paparazzi. I just picked up
