Personal best

"In Erwitt's photographic lexicon, 'personal' means pictures he has been determinedly taking for himself while earning a living as a professional photographer. Whether as a teenager, in the lab of a Hollywood publicity mill, or, later in New York, as a member of the distinguished photo co-op Magnum .. Erwitt has been working professionally for others yet still finding time to be an amateur photographer for himself. For him, 'amateur' is hardly pejorative; he points to the Latin root of the word amo (to love). This is photography for the love of it. Or, as he might say, photography made difficult"--Introduction.