Born in New York City a year before the Depression started, French photographer and filmmaker William Klein’s (1928 - present) first forays into art were through painting. Although he eventually switched gears towards the camera, he never formally studied photography, which explains his abstract approach. William Klein won his first camera during a poker game in 1946 while part of the U.S. Army stationed in Germany. He worked a brief stint as assistant to French painter and sculptor Fernand Léger’s in Paris in 1948. William Klein’s photography in fashion has appeared in magazines, books and documentary and feature films. William Klein currently works and lives in Paris. The artist is widely regarded as innovative in photo book design; his first book Life is Good and Good For You (1956) won the 1957 Prix Nadar. His work stretches an enormous gamut, including both high fashion photography as well as darker images, capturing sports such as boxing. American Vogue art director Alexander Liberman saw William Klein’s sculptures in Paris in 1954 and asked to meet with the photographer; Vogue went on to publish a number of his photo-essays, including images of Dutch barns. He eventually found a niche in fashion photography—shooting outside the studio and on the streets—for the publication. Klein photography of the 1950s was unusual for its time: grainy, blurry, high-contrast photographs--qualities generally considered defects in the popular photographic community. Klein not only accepted but cultivated these qualities by using a 35-millimeter camera, slow film, and a wide-angle lens, for both his fashion photography and his personal work. His approach set a precedent for many street photographers of the 1960s, whose work draws upon many of his innovations.