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Ed van der Elsken

Even though his cameras were ever-present, van der Elsken’s photos didn’t contain the least tinge of solipsism. It didn’t explore his personal identity - he was far more concerned with using his camera for documenting the social culture around him, especially the counterculture. His lenses captured the reckless, drug-taking bohemians in postwar Paris, the gruesome slaughter of hunted elephants in Africa, the demolition of Amsterdam’s looted and destroyed Jewish Quarter, segregation in South Africa under apartheid, jazz musicians onstage, and all forms of love - gender-bending, interracial and otherwise. He’s most famous for pictures shot in grainy, high-contrast black and white.

Emperor Norton

Emperor Norton was a celebrated citizen of San Francisco, California, who in 1859 proclaimed himself "Emperor of these United States" and subsequently "Protector of Mexico." Though he was considered insane, or at least highly eccentric, the citizens of San Francisco celebrated his regal presence and his proclamations, most famously, his "order" that the United States Congress be dissolved by force (which Congress and the U.S. Army ignored) and his numerous decrees calling for a bridge and a tunnel to be built across San Francisco Bay (which both happened long after his death in the form of the San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge and the Transbay Tube).