What stands out most about photographer Dustin Pittman is the way his work has always been rooted in people—relationships, exchange, and the energy of being together. Though he is celebrated for capturing fashion’s most iconic figures—Madonna, Grace Jones, Yves Saint Laurent—what defines his career is not celebrity but community. For Pittman, photography is history in motion: a way of preserving the spirit of a time, honoring traditions passed down through family, and carrying forward the connections that give each image its power. His devotion has always been to what binds us—to documenting the real before it slips away.

That sense of connection began early. Growing up in the Adirondacks, Pittman joined a Boy Scouts photography program at just six years old—where he learned not only how to shoot and print, but also how to share and critique. Throughout his youth, he roamed farms and fields with his camera, photographing family, friends, neighbors, and animals in the natural light that slipped through the slats of his family’s barn—which doubled as his first studio. With a grandfather and great-aunt who were both photographers, the medium was in his blood, and their stories of canoeing across mirrored lakes in 1918 to capture wildlife taught him that every image is part of a lineage—a contribution to collective memory. By the time he was a teenager, Pittman was already shaping light and shadow with curiosity and a passion for placing people at the center of his frame.

His move to New York in the late 1960s was less an escape than a continuation of this search for community. At the School of Visual Arts and in Greenwich Village’s creative circles—beat poets, Dylan, the Electric Circus—he found an atmosphere where art and community were one and the same. Days were filled with music, poetry, and painting; nights were spent at his Chinatown loft, processing his images until dawn. As his circle expanded to include Andy Warhol and the Factory, he built lasting friendships with artists, musicians, and icons whose presence in front of his lens grew out of genuine connection. Pittman’s images blurred high fashion with downtown experimentation because he lived at the intersection of those worlds—not as an outsider looking in, but as a participant within a wider creative family.

Today, The Gallery at Soho Grand honors that legacy with Chasing Fashion’s Cutting Edge, a striking exhibition that gathers Pittman’s most influential works. From the electricity of Iggy Pop to the elegance of Yves Saint Laurent and the magnetic presence of Grace Jones, these photographs are not just portraits but communal artifacts—records of the networks, friendships, and cultural exchanges that define each era. Alive with the energy of their time, these images remind us that photography has always been more than image-making. It is a practice of belonging—a way of holding onto history by honoring the people and communities who shape it.

Hillary Sproul: I noticed you were wearing an Edie Sedgwick T-shirt at the opening of your exhibit. Before I moved to NYC, I had always thought of her as the consummate NYC fashion icon. What does she mean to you?

Dustin Pittman: Well, she really was a real New York fashion icon. She dressed in clothes from Paraphernalia, Betsey Johnson, London looks—the whole thing… I only met her in the last two years of her life and, unfortunately, she was in really bad shape… But I always loved Edie. I love the fact that she was a survivor, to a point. And also, the fact is that I just loved her vibe. I have 37 of these shirts. I’ve been wearing them since 1993. It’s funny because if you look at pictures I shot of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs or The Strokes, you’ll see I have that shirt on—even in 1999. But you know where I got that idea from? A music producer told me that in the early days, Mick Jagger would do a tour and wear the same clothes at different concert venues in different cities. That way, PR-wise, they could use any given shot.

HS: The exhibit is titled Chasing Fashion’s Cutting Edge. Has fashion always been at the heart of your imagery?

DP: Fashion, music, culture—they all go together… It all has the same beats. As far as chasing fashion’s cutting edge, I’ve always gravitated toward the new. I’ve always recognized—and maybe it’s in my DNA—but I’ve always recognized freshness. That’s why I photographed Iggy Pop. When the Stooges came around, nobody liked them. Maybe 40 people from the downtown crowd liked them. And with Halston, for instance—I loved Halston because he took risks. He was the first designer to incorporate celebrities—like Liza (Minnelli) and Liz Taylor—into his fashion. I loved that about him, because it really does all go together.

 

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HS: You’ve photographed so many iconic New York artists—Andy Warhol being an early one. How did you first become part of that world?

DP: In 1968 or ’69, I was walking around Central Park. They used to have all those big love-ins, and everybody would play the bongos or guitar. It was fun. It was all freedom then. One Sunday, when I was there, someone came up to me, grabbed me by the arm, and said, “I want you to meet somebody.” It was Ingrid Superstar—one of Warhol’s superstars. She brought me down to the Factory on 33 Union Square West. That’s how I hit it off with Andy, and I got along with the superstars really well. I really understood where they were coming from, because that was my style. I was underground. I grew up photographing subjects out in the barn. That’s about as underground as you can get.

HS: Well, you seem like such an open-minded person. So when you saw what they were doing, you were open to it and—as a creative—of course you wanted to participate.

DP: Always. Yeah. The open-mindedness of nature and the universe and the mountains and the glaciers… It’s the same as the open-mindedness of cinéma vérité and the underground films. No boundaries—you pick up a camera and shoot a film. That’s Jonas Mekas and all that stuff… There were no bounds. That was the temperature and atmosphere—you didn’t have walls. To me, it was “unguarded moments.” No technology, no phones, total in-person direct contact conversations. Real time, with real people, forming community and creating—creating together. There wasn’t a competitiveness about it. People would just get together, wherever they were. I was hanging out with people like Terry Southern, the artist Larry Rivers, all the Warhol people, actors, actresses… And celebrity wasn’t that important. It was just about being friends. You know what I mean? Andy Warhol was a friend of mine—not a celebrity.

HS: Is there an Andy story you still think about?

DP: Everybody has their own story of Andy Warhol. It’s like Rashomon. Everybody has their own story of the Factories, because there are all different timelines of Andy Warhol in the Factories. I was close with him from ’69 to ’75. I knew him after that, but that was when we really hung out. This was before he was doing celebrity portraits, and he wasn’t really respected as an artist yet. He’d always say, “I’m broke, I’m broke”—that was his line. The superstars would want money, and he’d say, “No, I’m broke. I can give you a painting.” And they’d say, “Andy, we don’t want a painting—we want a hundred dollars!”

So back in ’70 or ’71, Andy said to me, “Dustin, why don’t you go in the back and take a painting?” But I never did. And I didn’t do it because, honestly, I didn’t want Andy to think I was using him for his paintings—or that I wanted his paintings. I respected his work, and he respected mine. He liked me and he liked my work. He loved the idea that I gravitated to and got along with the superstars. And I’m not going to say I was on the same page as Andy, but I do think we were in the same stratosphere.

HS: It seems like you really have the ability to connect with people.

DP: Well, that’s the most important thing for me. Especially now, with social media—everything is built up. The thing is, if you put a screen between you and the person you’re friends with—this visionary screen—you lose sight of their realness. I hate to use the word “authentic,” but you don’t want to lose sight of that, because you really just want to bond. You need to connect. And for the screen to disappear, you just can’t put anybody on a pedestal. You have to be equal in a way. Even if you respect their profession or their art or their passion, it’s important to be able to talk to people as humans. There’s got to be some soulfulness to it.

Halston, 1979. Photograph © Dustin Pittman

HS: It feels like your desire to connect has really allowed you to achieve some of the intimacy in your photographs.

DP: In my photography, I like to erase the myth and bring it more to reality. Because a lot of my pictures—they’re really unguarded moments of the truth. There’s no smokescreen behind it. I think it reaches back to my upbringing in the mountains and nature. Because nature is real. The roots of trees are real, the ground is real—that’s all real stuff. So when you grow up like that, it’s organic—I hate that word, it’s so stupid—but it’s true.

HS: What do you find inspiring in your work today?

DP: I always photograph the underdog. I always gravitate to the realness of people—people pursuing their passions. I’ve always loved that.

HS: And so many of your friends are artists themselves—I wonder in what ways you inspire each other.

DP: I go to a lot of openings. I buy a lot of books—as many as I can afford. I support as many as I can. I’m not a competitor. If you line up ten photographers taking the same shot, you’ll get ten different shots… So where’s the competitiveness? If the vision comes to me, I trust my vision. You have to. You have to trust your own vision. You have to have blinders on and be true to it.

HS: As an artist with an abundance of ideas, you can sometimes lose yourself trying to figure out what to focus on. As a photographer, I wonder how you even approach picking a single shot out of so many images.

DP: Well, I learned it from my friend Carrie Donovan, who was the fashion editor for The New York Times. She said—and I’ve stuck by this—“If it doesn’t sing, forget it.” So if your version sings to you, that’s the one you use. Don’t listen to other people. You take advice and suggestions—everybody has suggestions—but it’s got to sing to you. It has to resonate with your authenticity. Otherwise, it’s not you. It’s not valid. It’s someone else’s work. When you start changing and fiddling with shit, that’s when you get into trouble.

HS: I know you sometimes go by Dustin Pop—where did that come from?

DP: A lot of people think it has to do with Iggy, but it has nothing to do with Iggy—it has to do with culture. When I was little, everybody said, “Dustin, all your photographs—they pop so much. The spontaneity of your photography just pops—it all just pops in front of you.” So I just said, “Fuck it, let me just go touch and pop!”

HS: “If it doesn’t sing…”

DP: That’s right. Which one pops? Pick that one. That’s right. 

Dustin Pittman: Chasing Fashion’s Cutting Edge is open to the public Wednesday through Sunday, 12:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., through January 3, 2026.

WORDS Hillary Sproul

FEATURED IMAGERY © Dustin Pittman