With “Tiffany’s” as his calling card and both Brodovitch and Capote in his corner, my dad worked constantly after that.  And he racked up impressive credits: frequent covers and spreads for Vogue, Time, Newsweek, and Bazaar. Portraits of everyone from W.E.B. Du Bois to Bobby Fischer to The Band. Two books of his own work, 1977's Russian Self-Portraits, and 1981's Portrait: Theory (together with Chuck Close, Robert Mapplethorpe and others -- not the shabbiest company).

And while his work slowly faded after his passing in the 1980’s, I’m happy to say that it has seen a significant revival. A gorgeous book of his Capote photographs came out about five years ago (Brooklyn: A Personal Memoir, With The Lost Photographs of David Attie, The Little Bookroom, 2015), followed by an eighteen-month show at the Brooklyn Historical Society, and shows in Los Angeles and England too.  Later this year, he’ll have another new book, of his behind-the-scenes photos from the very first season of Sesame Street. His work is being licensed and published widely again, and now there is this wonderful exhibit at Keith de Lellis Gallery in New York. (Keith, I should add, remained a true champion of my father’s work -- even in the years when it was mostly dormant.)

My dad’s work was always wide-ranging. His straight portraiture and street photography were fantastic. But more than any other style, the montages became his voice. A way to express things that couldn’t be captured by the naked eye. A way to make photographic paper his canvas. A way to be different.

His background in illustration no doubt shaped these montages. In fact, he acknowledged this himself; he would often photograph backgrounds and foregrounds separately, and combine them in the darkroom. A standard illustration technique.

But here’s what I find fascinating: his work as an illustrator was good, but in his own words, “never outstanding.” He never tried to experiment. He never tried to invent. He never tried to be different. Until that darkroom accident somehow freed him – to start seeing with his mind’s eye, to embrace the unusual, to use the darkroom not just to develop film, but to develop ideas.

My father once wrote, “My first impulse when I started out was to do battle with photography, to produce images that were anti-photographic. I have never made peace with photography in its simplest expression. I feel the need to interfere in some way with the making of a photograph. I don’t seem to have the ability to leave things alone. It only seems to work for me when I complicate the endeavor. The ideal photograph for me is one that cannot be seen in a viewfinder or even in nature.”

And yet it took a technical mishap to unlock that impulse. There’s a lesson in it, and I think it applies to anyone doing creative work. Who needs to invent Photoshop? The real task is to invent yourself.