Jack Simon8From Psychiatry to Street Photography

In this episode of Eyeshot 50mm, we speak with Jack Simon, an American street photographer whose work resists strategy, planning, and fixed definitions. Simon began photographing seriously later in life, after a long career as a psychiatrist, and that delayed entry shapes his approach: photography as presence rather than ambition, as response rather than construction.

Simon defines street photography as spontaneous, unposed, and unresolved, often happening in museums, airports, or family settings as much as on the street. From icons such as Gregory Crewdson, Diane Arbus, Magritte, Hopper, Simon is drawn to moments that feel slightly off where surprise, he explains, is essential.