Jerry Schatzberg began his career as an assistant to the photographer Bill Helburn. In the mid-fifties, he founded his own studio and started to work with magazines such as "Vogue", "Esquire", "Cosmopolitan", "Life" and "Glamour". He soon established himself as a leading fashion photographer, while his portraits of famous artists -among whom, Catherine Deneuve, Claudia Cardinale, Roman Polanski, Bob Dylan and The Rolling Stones- made his oeuvre widely known and his personal style recognizable. In 1970, he made his directorial debut with Puzzle of a Downfall Child.

Seen in its entirety, Schatzberg's work is marked by an intriguing continuity between photography and film. Thus, we rediscover his "landscapes" in Scarecrow and Honeysuckle Rose, while his "Street Scenes" series come alive in The Panic in Needle Park and Street Smart. His portrait photography, on the other hand, seems to have taught him how to bring to the surface the real self of his actors, the one they hide from the rest of the world. Schatzberg spent time with his models in order to minimize their fear of the lens and to win their inner truth. Both in his films and his photographs, he gives the impression that he is interested in what lies beyond and behind the frame, a story that surpasses the moment, but which is present and available to the gaze of the attentive viewer.