Dennis Hopper recently exhibited some of his photographs and paintings at Tony Shafrazi Gallery in New York City.

I'll be honest: I've always liked Hopper. He has an impeccable eye for art in various forms -- films, painting, photography, art collecting, acting, etc. Some of the films I saw him in when I was younger -- Easy Rider, Apocalypse Now, and Blue Velvet -- certainly gave him some good cred in my book.

So getting the chance to look at some of his photographs was especially intriguing to me. One, because I'm a photographer. Two, because all of the photos in the exhibit were from the early to late 1960s, a time period when he was an up and coming actor and artist and before his breakthrough directorial debut with Easy Rider.

This first batch is especially interesting in that he made the photographs in the '60s and revisited them in 2009 to paint his immense "billboard paintings." He has a photorealism thing going on mixed with a bit of Ed Ruscha's influence (whom himself is a subject of one of Hopper's photograph/billboard painting combos below).

I think it's kind of amusing that these photo/painting combinations are of visual artists. Some of the greatest ones, in fact. Hopper was definitely hanging around the right crowd in '60s art world. No doubt his growing stature in Hollywood at the time offered him some choice access to the stars of art and entertainment of the time.

Ultimately, the world doesn't need more images of celebrities. However, these images capture a time before celebrity saturated our lives.

Through Hopper's eyes we see the personalities before/beyond publicists and movie plugs and more like our confidants and friends. They were just that to Hopper and, for a fraction of a second, they're ours, too.