In the introduction to Mr. Kaplan’s first book, “High on New York” (1985), Paul Goldberger, then the chief architecture critic for The New York Times, wrote, “These unusual pictures combine the skill of a professional photographer, the perception of a fine painter and the daring of a trapeze artist.”
It was the decade of the early 1980s to 1990s that Peter's skill and vision erupted. He secured the position of the official photographer from the Statue of Liberty Ellis Island Foundation and created the most comprehensive historical document, to this day, of the entire restoration project consisting of over a quarter million images. “Nothing — including sometimes us — stood in his way,” said Stephen A. Briganti, president and chief executive of the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation. Peter's photographs have appeared in exhibitions in New York at the Museum of Modern Art, the International Center for Photography, the New-York Historical Society and the Skyscraper Museum, and in Washington at the Smithsonian Institution, among other places. They were also enclosed in time capsules to commemorate the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge, the Chrysler Building, the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building.
Born in Manhattan and raised in Great Neck, Long Island, Peter's undiagnosed dyslexia meant school was a struggle from the beginning. Photography became his ideal means of self expression. In the 1970s, sheer imagination and experimentation led to Peter thrusting his camera beyond the barrier of the Empire State Building's observation desk and pointing it straight down. To his delight, friends and family felt queasy from the dizzying heights, and so began Peter's career.
Peter died in March of 2019, leaving behind his wife, Sharon and two children, Ricki and Gabriel LIberty. The New York Times obituary memorialized him with the phrase "A Photographer with Altitude."
