#7 Meet you in Manhattan.

This week I met two astonishing men (neither of which were Vladimir Putin). My studio hosts occasional seminars for professional photographers, and there was such an event this Wednesday.

First up was Dr. Stanley Burns, owner of the most celebrated private photographic archive in America. His Upper West Side digs house some 700,000 photographs of historical importance.

I cannot understate how much importance. He showed us the only surviving photograph of the 20,000 strong crowd watching America's last public hanging. He showed us a huge collection of Holocaust imagery, from albums of SS soldiers showing men having their beards shaved, to a Parisian serial killer who ensnared victims on the promise of providing safe passage to America. He has an astonishing collection of medical imagery - the first corneal graft, the first open brain surgery under local anaesthetic, and so on.

At the lecture he showed a lot of images which have yet to be shown anywhere. A major exhibition on the history of the American civil rights movement, for example, will go ahead at the Met in 2012.

Corbis, the US image library, apparently offered his $30 million for the collection a couple of years ago. Anyway, should your interest be piqued, you can read more at .

Next up was a British photographer called Platon, most famous for his portraits of world leaders. Why the one word moniker, I do not know. Not a lot to say, other than that his work is fabulous, and you should check it out here: .

He was original skyrocketed to fame by the photograph of Putin above, which featured on the cover of time, and won first prize at the World Press Photo competition.