Irving Penn's dead, I could read in my newspaper. It made me think about it when I started photographing myself. I was 19 years old and managed to scrape money for cameras and eventually a studio.

Irving Penn was one of the photographers I admired a lot. Especially for his portraits and fashion pictures that were usually just straight on. Model and nothing else. I went up and looked in my rather messy archive if I had any pictures that might show Penn's influence.

I think the girl's name was Helen and these are some pictures I think I took when I had just started to photograph. I don't remember much else about them but it's a little penny. A girl and a background.

The final picture was copied on a high-contrast paper. It took five rolls of film to get it and a lot of copies I see in the archive. Long live the digital photo.