I was looking through some photographs taken by retailing giant Stanley Marcus this morning. It was mainly candid shots of his family and friends. There were plenty of his wife Billie in Venice, at Stonehenge and on the Queen Mary. And there were photos of his children and grandchildren in swings, on bicycles and in graduation garb. For all intents and purposes, these could be anyone’s old family photos; the content, the styles of the day, the blue and yellow tones. But Marcus had sensational “verve and flair” and that’s what separates his images from others. Jerrie Marcus Smith once said about her dad, “My father was an inquisitive man and he loved gadgets, I remember he always had two or three cameras around his neck or in a pocket. In the 30’s he won first place in a photography contest sponsored by the New York Times. I believe it was the only contest he ever entered.”