A few days before we gathered here, Ed Murphy called me to ask what would make me happy to have happen at this event. If there were a fire drill now, I would say, I am already fully blessed. But until the bell rings, I would love for Ed to come and join me here, as my life and photography are so intertwined with his. I hope Judy, Melba, Clara and Rinetta will stay and enjoy the show, and please come join me when we're done or any time your heart says to do so.

After being a child growing up in an era when children were seen and not heard, and then growing into a woman in an era when women were seen and not heard, photography became my voice, in an age when our generation likewise adopted "speaking truth to power." As I mention the names of others here who have not spoken yet, I hope they will come up and join me, so that by the end, we will be the cohort of amazing power and love that I feel is with me, not just here but every day, and with so many others.

*There is an expression that I learned in Nepal and that everyone knows, "Namaste": I greet, salute, acknowledge the divine in you. *It is in that spirit that I greet, salute, acknowledge you here today *and the people who encouraged, inspired, enlightened, and *bedeviled me as I photographed them. *I include their names, when I know them,  as part of that tribute. *I thank G-d for the light.

*Thank you to my mother, Edith Entratter Henry, who set standards so high - for herself and for others- that I could never achieve them, *but it's been a grand life trying! *Thank you to my father Carl Henry, *for his passion for ultimate issues, for deciphering the grand plan behind the events, for sharing with me *his enamoration with media, journalism, advertising, photography and film. *My parents' support financed my career. Thanks to grandma and grandpa *Clara and August Levy for their generous invitations to join on trips and to *aunt Emilie for being a guiding light. *Thanks to cousins David and Nancy for their great company for part of the way. *Thanks to Aunt Rae for saying my daughter could be President some day; *to Uncle Jack Entratter for fun times running through the Sands Hotel and for giving me the family's first and only TV, when I was 15.... and for getting me the summer job during college.

Thank you to my governess, *Agathe Durbano, who came to me in when I was 2 and a half and *gave me the gift of the French language in which to dream *and live an alternate life. Thank you to the teachers of the *Lycée Français de NY who asked the best of me and made me feel I could achieve it. *Thanks to Blanchette, forever. *Thanks to Zola, Flaubert and Camus, who let me look into the human soul deeper and more intricately than any human being ever has. *Thanks to Georges Simenon for a real-life literary adventure.

*Thanks to Pierrette Fleutiaux for asking me to teach my first photography class (as a cover for her affair with a student) and for putting my photograph on the cover of the first novel of her illustrious career. *Thanks to my friends Cynthia, Barbara, *Monique, *Tanya, who shared and sometimes led the journey for me. *The memories of Haiti, *France,  and Cincinnati are now shared at the Du Bois. *Thank you for every laugh and spoof, Barbara "Estie"; owe you for your faith in my photographs - *"These are treasures," you used to say, in the dark days. 

*Thanks to Julian Levy, who taught me photography at the Harvard Crimson *and to Tim Carlson and the others with whom the all night sessions sharpened my vision and kept me in school. Thanks to *Ben Levy, classmate and reunion co-chairman with Eleanor Hobson, who gave me the opportunity to show my work in a big solo exhibit at our 25th class of 1969 reunion and also to speak on Photography as a political art at our 40th.

*Thanks to my photography pals who more or less believed in and taught me, others who thought I was cute and didn't teach me much: *Rowland Scherman, *Steve Eisenberg, *Julian Wasser, Peter B. Kaplan, *John Wilkes, Steven Borns, *Micha Bar-Am, Arnold Newman, the great Ernst Haas, *Cornell Capa who had the brainstorm to ask me to develop a Community Workship program for the ICP and Via Wynroth, who asked me to teach black and white and Cibachrome photography there. It is an honor and a pleasure that Anna Wimand and Steve Rooney, from the top echelon of the ICP, are here today.  *To Berenice Abbott, who signed my application for membership in the professional organization the ASMP "Sponsored Enthusiastically!"

Thanks to my role models, inspiring women of photography much too little known: *Alice Austen, Gisele Freund, * Louise Dahl-Wolfe, *Lida Moser, , Margarethe Mather...the list would take the another talk to make right.*Thanks to Margaret Riggs "Peggy" Buckwalter for leading the charge that I seconded, to mark Alice's grave, name a Staten Island ferry, *save her house and create the Alice Austen House  museum there in her name.

*Thanks to David Wolper in his white bathrobe in Cannes for not taking me to the casting couch *in order to give me my summer job before senior year as publicity assistant on If It's Tuesday This Must Be Belgium.

*Thanks to Peter Reich for his night-editing of my general assignment reporting at the Staten Island Advance, and to others I met there, gone but not forgotten: Bill Huus, Jack Turcotte...*Thanks to the McGovern gang: Pat Funt, Ethan Geto, Jan Levy, and Stuart Bratesman.  *Thanks to my first client and staunch supporter from then till now: Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman *via her campaign manager Wynn Kramarsky. *To Dan McNamee and Rick Hirsch for entrée to the *Dem National Convention, Miami Beach, 1972, and *to Dick Tuck for publishing me in Reliable Source there and in 1976. *Thanks to the magnanimous and elegant patrons who opened the doors to society in those wild and wonderful years: Jeannette Watson, *Donald Dial Jr, *Charles Rahn Fry, *Malcolm Forbes and *the Forbes family.

*Thanks to Germain School of Photography, Mr. Hollingsworth, who taught me to process Ektacolor prints, *expertise that I carried on to teaching Cibachrome; *to Jim Smith, for making me staff photographer for *Brooklyn Today.

 *Thanks to Douglas Matthews, who got me hired by Boston Magazine to photograph the *Bicentennial at Concord and Lexington and *the opening of the *JFK LIbrary.*

*Thanks to my ex, Noel Mapstead, *for introducing me to the Lower East Side scene * and for posing on the eve of our divorce, and for *asking me to meet him at Esalen the night of Joan Baez, Bonnie Raitt and *Baba Olatunji were dancing and singing and drumming.

*My thanks cannot be adequately expressed to Bella Abzug, *who gave the kick in the pants that all her young acolytes deserved and thrived on and *that truly drove us to do greater things than we ever thought, but she knew.we could. *Sylvia Ortiz, torch bearer for the last mile of the opening of the First National Women's Conference, is here with us today.

*Thanks to Gloria Steinem who has been a faithful correspondent especially in recent years, and with whom I share the passion for the term MS, a term no one under 30 knows the meaning of today.

Thank you to Phyllis Chesler, for being one feminist I whose affection I am blessed with, and to Lucy Komisar, Linda Garcia Merchant and Sheila Tobias, Jo Freeman, Jane de Hart Matthews, Linda Kerber and U Mass' own wonderful Laura Lovett.

I have been a curator and chaperone for my work as well writing history with my photographs, and now in my talks. Thanks to Matt Saunders for so faithfully executing my vision for my website since 2003 and for creating its fabulous slide show functionality. Thanks to the gallery directors who wanted to share my work with a greater public, starting with Carol Levine, who gave me my first retrospective in 1982 at the Ballard Mill Center for the Arts, in Malone, NY. NB: There has not been another one until here and now. Thanks to Gail Epps whose video was the first and so eloquent.

Without publicists, and writers - friends -  like Gil Wintering I would not have photographed Jackie O; Anne Obert Weinberg assigned me to photograph Shirley MacLaine and the Ballets Trockadero, Kevin Lewis the party at the MOMA for Lillian Gish and got me my last assignment, to photograph Ken Burns, and many others who sent the work my way that formed me and my legacy: Tom Jones for the Forbes family connections, Jeannette Watson, Salvador Dali and Ultraviolet; Alice Heyman ( insert photo by Jo Freeman ) for Stewart Mott and Alice Neel, William van den Heuvel for the thrill of being on stage with James Brown at Rikers Island.

I have enjoyed teaching photography since 1973, but some of my most difficult assignments have been in the role of mentor to interns who came and went over the years. Thank you to Ashley Martinelli, the latest and the best!* I hope to be given another chance or two to be a good one, if you will send any young people who can spell my way.

Thanks to the internet, which weekly brings new ways to share my work. The internet is also precious way to reconnect with who I photographed - that would be a talk of its own! I would like to share my appreciation for their part in my photographs, and who have extended their graciousness in return: Jennifer Lowenstein Littlefield and Kate Lowenstein, Hare Krishna devotees photographed on Fifth Avenue in 1973, Herman Badillo, Margaret Opie via her son and finally, to end this love fest: Namaste to Don Carrico and the Vietnam Veterans of the Concord to Boston Common Memorial Day action, 1971, of whom Rusty Sachs also honors us with his presence today.

Would all who have been in my talk or in my life come up and join me? You may want to say a few words. Are there any questions? Diana

EMail dmh@dianamarahenry.com