All of us have different criteria for judging photographs. For me, the subject must be compelling and the composition artful. And the image must reward me each time I see it. It must add something to my understanding of the world and the human condition – some universality. And unless it is a photograph of devastation or human suffering, it must be an image I would want to see often – one I could live with on my walls. 

So how is it that Robert McCabe, in his early twenties, traveled to Greece and created so many images that fulfill my criteria? How did a young man with a camera hit the ground running, producing some of the most indelible and satisfying photographs most of us have never seen? Where did McCabe develop such a certain eye? He will tell you he spent much of his early life looking at photographs in newspapers and magazines, and began taking pictures with a Kodak Brownie when he was six. Well, so did I, but I’ve never made the beautiful and engaging images you see here. 

Look at the photos of Paris, and think of Cartier-Bresson or the great postcards of Yvon. Look at all the Greek photographs. Did he learn from Constantine Manos? No, they were taken almost twenty years earlier than Manos’s wonderful A Greek Portfolio.  American pictures – before Robert Frank. And so on. McCabe, for reasons that I do not fully understand, has given us a treasure trove of images, each one thoroughly rewarding. How fortunate we are to have this collection by a photographer whose name is not well known, but should be.

James L. Mairs