Julius Shulman 1910-2009

His most famous photo, Peter Koenig's "Case Study House No. 22."

To capture the image in the camera, however, Shulman had to essentially take two photographs at once -- one of the vista below, which required a time exposure, and one of the house, which required a flash.

Working quickly and without a light meter, Shulman shot a 7½-minute exposure of the city lights with his 4-by-5 camera.

"Then, when I felt I had given enough time for the exposure, and I wanted to flash the interior, I called to the girls," Shulman told Taina Rikala De Noriega for the Archives of American Art/Smithsonian Institution. "I said, 'Girls, sit up now and look pleasant. Look toward each other as if you're talking and hold still for just a second and the flash will go off.' I pressed the release. All this time the shutter was open and the flash illuminated the interior."

Probably his most famous Palm Springs photo, the Kaufmann house.

I did this many times, like in this 1947 photograph of the Neutra Kaufmann House in Palm Springs, which is standing here. It's a twilight picture, which is a 45-minute exposure. I had been doing photographs with Neutra at the house, and towards evening, as the sun was setting, I noticed, looking out to the eastern desert, there was a beautiful glow in the sky, and I said to Mr. Neutra, "Just a moment. I want to go outside and look at the house from the eastern side of the property." I looked at the house and I thought, "My God! Look at the twilight developing, and look at the mountains, and the scene which was being created by the changing light!" So I quickly ran into the house, against the will of Neutra, because Neutra was insistent that we continue working, because he wanted to do more interiors in the house.

So I said, "No, Richard, we can't do that. That sky is beautiful, the mountains are beautiful, and the light glowing inside, the exposure values are just right." So I ran out with my camera and my film bag, and I set up the camera, and out of this came this photograph. And I had a shutter which didn't have to be cocked. You can open and close this shutter at will, expose two or three seconds at a time, and then run into the house and turn on lights, turn off lights, and built, kept, like building blocks, kept building my exposure for this scene. And out of this came this photograph. Now the point I'm making is I didn't know what I was doing.

His L.A. Times obituary and L.A. Times bio.

More photos and an interview. More photos and yet more photos.