This afternoon, the poker community learned of the passing of one of its legends, and it was not a person who ever picked up a chip. Noted photographer Ulvis Alberts, whose iconic portrait-style photographs of poker’s greatest players and other celebrities are renowned worldwide, passed away from undisclosed causes. Alberts was eighty-three years old.
“A Beautiful Life Has Come to an End”
In a simple statement befitting the gentleman it honored, the family would announce Alberts’ passing on his Facebook page. “Today, on November 18, a beautiful life has come to an end,” the statement began. “Photographer Ulvis Alberts has set off on a distant journey through the galaxies of the world. We extend our condolences to all who admired the artist’s talent and to everyone for whom Ulvis was important. Information about the farewell ceremony will follow.”
Alberts was born in Latvia in 1942 and emigrated to the U.S. with his family in 1949. He graduated from the University of Washington in Seattle with a degree in radio and television. But it was another medium in which Alberts would make his name.
In the Sixties, Alberts would make his first mark on the photographic community by capturing iconic music superstars. In the Sixties, he photographed prominent rock musicians in Seattle, including Bob Dylan, Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead, and the legendary Jimi Hendrix. His portraits of Hendrix were particularly noteworthy, as they are part of the Experience Music Project and the late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s collection.
Alberts’ expertise behind the camera and in short- and documentary filmmaking would lead to his being invited to audit the American Film Institute in Beverly Hills, CA, and to his subsequent move to Los Angeles in the Seventies. In this phase of his career, Alberts would continue to break new ground in photography by photographing such Hollywood luminaries as Groucho Marx, Christopher Reeve, John Way, Nick Nolte, Jack Nicholson, Jack Lemmon, Paul Newman, and many others.
Most of his work from Alberts’ Hollywood era was used in the book Camera as Passport about those experiences. That was also the title of the exhibition that Alberts had on display at the World Latvian Art Center, which is currently ongoing in Cēsis, Latvia, and will run through December 29.
Connection to Poker World Immense
Alberts’ connection to poker came in the early Eighties. He was one of the first photographers to capture portraits of many of the game’s iconic names by shooting the World Series of Poker beginning in 1977. For the next five years, Alberts would return to Las Vegas for the WSOP, continuing to photograph the players. In 1981, those portraits were published in the book Poker Face, which is now out of print and a collector’s item; a copy can sell for as much as $2,500, but not many copies find their way to the auction block.
That original book captured many of the portraits of poker’s legends that have become immortal. “Amarillo Slim” Preston, Puggy Pearson, Jack Strauss, Doyle Brunson, and Stu Ungar were a part of the original Poker Face. It would not be the last time that Alberts would lend his artistic touch to the poker world.
In 2002, Alberts would return to the WSOP for what would become a second volume of these portraits of the contemporary poker world. It was during this second run that this writer met Alberts and became enthralled with his work, which would appear in a second volume of his portraits of poker players, Poker Face 2, released in 2006. That book is still available through his website.
When it came to his work in the poker world, Alberts was reflective about what he was doing. On his website, Alberts wrote, “Was I searching for a poker face when I was photographing? Would I recognize a poker face thru my camera lens before I took a picture? Probably not on both counts. You, as the viewer of my poker photographs, have to decide on a “poker face” in my images. Does the secret of a “poker face” remain a secret? Probably, yes.”
The passing of Ulvis Alberts is yet another loss to the “classic” yesteryears of poker. Poker News Daily would like to extend its condolences to the Alberts family.