Herb Hammer was born in New York, in the Hell’s Kitchen area, in 1937. He took up photography in 1985, at the age of forty-eight. Herb studied at the International Center for Photography in New York in 1986 and ’87.

In 1995 Herb studied with Joyce Tenneson at the Santa Fe Workshops, and returned there in 1996 to study with Greg Gorman and John Weiss. He has exhibited in group shows in New York City and on Long Island.

Herb has a keen and sensitive eye. The following are examples of some of Herb’s New York City still life photography. In them, he has found beauty in the details of what is a part of the city life we often ignore.

The first three images are details of the sides of some large trash bins. The fourth image is of a torn poster on Beech Street on the West side. The final four are of wine labels pasted to the wall in the alley behind what was once Morrell’s Wine Shop on East 53rd Street, all in New York City.

Herb died unexpectedly of a cerebral hemorrhage, at age 66 in June 2004. He is survived by his wife Suette, who lives in Florida.