NEW YORK—Henry Buhl is just one of those “right time, right place” kind of guys. At 82, he has had four careers, any one of which one person would love to succeed in.
Buhl, who began working on the New York Stock Exchange in 1951, enjoyed a 25-year career in the finance world. He started as a stock specialist but quickly moved on to stock analyst, where his career took off.
In 1961, he moved to Geneva, Switzerland, hired as the 13th employee for Investors Overseas Service. When the company went public in 1969, the Geneva office had grown to 2,500 employees and the company more than 18,000 employees worldwide.
Buhl lived a luxurious lifestyle in Geneva for 12 years, but his crowning achievements were yet to come.
Talent Exposed
In 1980, Buhl was invited to his niece’s wedding on Long Island and asked if he could take pictures. “I never took a camera or photography class, but I bought a camera to see what I could do,” he said.
He shadowed the professional photographer, snapping everything from formal photos to dinner and dancing.
“About 3 to 4 days after the wedding, I got a call from the hostess asking how my pictures came out,” Buhl said. When he told her he thought they were ok, Buhl said the hostess told him, “I hope they came out, because not one of the professional photographer’s pictures came out because her camera jammed.”
Buhl was stunned. He had a professional photographer help him create proof sheets and a presentation book.
“The bride came back from her honeymoon and I took my book out and showed them the pictures and they said they liked them,” he said.
Buhl was set up with 13 other weddings. At one of them, he met an Italian PR woman who offered him a job to shoot the opening of the Yves Saint Laurent boutique on Madison Avenue.
“They offered me more money than I had ever dreamed of getting for one of my weddings,” he said. The celebrity presence attracted the attention of a magazine called Quest, who contacted Buhl and asked to use one of his photos.
Quest asked Buhl how much money he wanted to publish the photo and he said had been paid enough for the job. He only asked for a byline.
“I got a byline and from that point on I never stopped working as a photographer. I got so many calls and I was out every night,” he said. Buhl said he photographed weddings in Argentina, Paris, Bali, Indonesia, and all over the world. He even photographed the Olympics.
