Last time I talked to Elliott Erwitt, it must have been twenty years ago, I asked him when he was going to retire from the labour of turning out a new book every two years. He said having been married four times and living in California, a state with community property laws, money was always limited and he had to keep working. I think he was only half kidding. He went on to say that turning out books was no problem because his picture archive was already so vast that book editors were free to mine what they wanted out of it but they would never get to the end. All that photography was fun, Elliott said, but it was also earnest and persistent work; the sort of work that makes you tired.
We touched on his famous Boy Baguette Bicycle picture as an example of candid excellence but Elliott explained that the idea was spontaneous but the execution was not. He had the man ride the bicycle several times up and down the road and made camera exposures on black and white and colour film. The exposures were pre-focussed on that little stone you see on the road next to the bicycle.
The photographic world will miss Elliott Erwitt's wit, wisdom, and humour and I will too.