NAME: Allan Batt
TITLE: Photographer, Battman Studios - click to slideshow
CLAIM TO FAME: Has a permanent photo exhibition on the 80th floor
QUOTE: "You think New York, you think the Empire State Building"

People may not realize it, but the whole 80th floor in the Empire State Building belongs to one lucky man. Well, almost.

Batt is also a lucky family man -- here with wife Hitomi, twins Elina and Kyto, and daughter Starr.

Allan Batt, aka Battman Photographer, may not occupy the whole floor, but he is certainly a lucky photographer; he has a permanent photo display there.

"With the exhibition, I'm like, 'Geez, how many people in the world have this? Nobody,'" he says and laughs. "You know, it's probably the most famous building in the world and I have my pictures hanging up there. People see them all the time. It's a real kick to think about it."

Batt, 54, has been photographing New York City for 20 years. "I started taking pictures because I didn't know what else to do," he says. He used them to print greeting cards. And that's when he "discovered" the Empire State Building.

"It's a wonderful looking building," Batt says. "The architecture is different than anything else, the Art Deco on the top and in the lobby. But it was also a very accessible building; more accessible than other buildings when I started taking pictures. I mean you could go around and take pictures, outside and inside."

Batt, who was born and raised in New York, lives and works in a spacious loft about 10 blocks away from the famous skyscraper. And he feels attached to it. "You think New York, you think the Empire State Building," he says. "It's part of me, especially since my exhibition is up there." (See some of his ESB pictures)

About 10 years ago he got a phone call from the building's public relations staff.
"They wanted a picture, I don't remember what exactly it was," he says. "I went down there and I noticed another photographer had pictures in the lobby next to the ticket booth. And I said, 'Listen, I'd really like to hang one of my pics up in this building. Lydia Ruth (the spokesperson for the building) asked 'How would you like the whole 80th floor?'"

Batt couldn't say no, and from that day he began taking pictures of the building more than ever before.

"I am not an obsessed photographer," he says. "I don't carry a camera with me all the time. I am not technically oriented either, but a lot of the times I've been in the right place at the right time to take a picture. I'd rather be lucky than good."

-- Iwona K. Hoffman