Broughton Quarterly - Fall 2008 - (Page 28) In fact, studying Shay’s photographs is like reading a novel; his pictures have the psychology of Dostoevsky, the realism of Hemingway, the metaphor of Melville. They tell stories. It’s fitting, then, that some of Shay’s most powerful work comes from his time spent chronicling the life of a writer. One of Shay’s favorite stories to tell is that of Chicago, of its denizens, back alleys, and Machiavellian politics. Even though he was born in New York, Shay has adopted Chicago as his own. “Chicago’s the kind of city that I was and am as a person,” he says.“A little rough around the edges with a lot of street smarts. The character of Chicago is what speaks to me.” Shay’s illustrious photography career began innocently enough. In his early twenties, he got a job following a traveling handball and racquetball tour, shooting player photos. He then moved on to general sports books, one of which, on how to correct common golf mistakes, became a bestseller. His work has been published in numerous magazines, he’s released 60 books, seen two plays go into production, and has been listed in the pantheon of great photographers such as Cartier-Bresson, Brassai, Strand, and Stieglitz. But it’s the capturing of moments that ground Shay’s work. And it’s one such moment that has put Shay on the international hot seat: a 1952 photograph of the French philosopher, author, and feminist Simone de Beauvoir. This controversy-causing photo isn’t just any old snapshot of Beauvior (Shay has a bunch of those). This one happens to be a shot of the French thinker’s nude derriere, taken by one of Shay’s infamous hidden cameras. The photo is part of an exhibit of Shay’s work that opened in Paris at the Galerie Loeb in spring 2008 (it’s also included in “Chicago’s Nelson Algren”). The exhibit was protested by Parisian feminists who asked for the photo to be removed from the exhibit; either that or have the gallery spread include similar bare-buttocks photo of Jean-Paul Sartre, Beauvior’s life-long companion. Shay chuckled at the suggestion, and the show went on. Perhaps what is so upsetting about this photo isn’t Beauvior’s privacy that protestors claim is being violated—after all, Beauvior isn’t any guardian of privacy; in her autobiography,“La Force des Studying Shay’s photographs is like reading a novel; his pictures have the psychology of Dostoevsky, the realism of Hemingway, the metaphor of Melville. They tell stories. 28 broughton Quarterly FALL 2008
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