A native of Los Angeles, Anthony Friedkin began photographing as a child. He started working in the darkroom at age eleven, processing and printing his own images. Since that time, which was in the early 1960's, he has accomplished a significant body of work. His photographs are included in major Museum collections: New York?s Museum of Modern Art, The J. Paul Getty Museum and others. He is represented in numerous private collections as well. His pictures have been published in Japan, Russia, Europe, and many Fine Art magazines in America.
Friedkin uses his camera as a means of personal discovery. His full frame black & white photographs explore the many mysteries of moments in time. He creates his own distinctive exhibition prints in his darkroom. He says of his work, "I believe in extraordinary photographs that draw you in and cannot be easily defined-celebrating perception and its many hidden layers of reality."
Together his completed photo essays are: "The Gay Essay," done in San Francisco and Los Angeles in 1969 and 1970; "The Beverly Hills Essay," shot in 1975; "The Hollywood Series," which was inaugurated by a special commission in 1978 and continues to this day; and "The Ocean-Surfing Essay," which explores Friedkin?s intimate, intensely personal relationship with the sea and it's magnificent waves. A historical set of photographs on "New York City Brothels," includes genuine studies of prostitutes in their work environment. A special set of pictures on "California Prisons"and their inmates, includes sensitive portraits of incarcerated teenagers. For most of his life he has been photographing "Los Angeles," creating an unparalleled body of images, which comes from his love of the diversely visual and cultural town.
Informed by the works of Atget, Kertesz, and Josef Koudelka, he moves gracefully among disparate worlds--from surrealistic sets of Hollywood to the shores of the tempestuous Pacific Ocean. Julian Cox, from the Department of Photographs at the J. Paul Getty Museum, writing in the introduction of Friedkin?s photographic aArt book Timekeeper, said, "He captures and creates beauty for its own sake, but he also chases life's more elusive mysteries, The best of his pictures are outr&eactue;, edgy fragments of life, emitting sparks of electricity that increase in wattage the more closely we examine what's there."
For the past twenty-five years Anthony Friedkin has lived and worked out of his apartment studio in Santa Monica. He is also preparing a book of his Ocean-Wave photographs.