Career
He was reported by The New York Times as “The most published baby photographer in the world" and by the Wall Street Journal as the "Armani of the kiddy costume world."
Arma of Bridgehampton, New York began his photographic career as a teenager when he was hired by the largest circulation newspaper of its time, the New York Daily News, as their youngest staff photographer. These include the fires, the murders, the poor, the privileged, the famous and the infamous. After several years of covering difficult news, and hundreds of journalism awards later, Arma asked for reassignment to the Magazine section of the paper.
lieutenant is there where in color he photographed the most famous stars of the time.
Some of these stars include, Clint Eastwood, Paul Newman, Jack Nicholson, and Michael Caine. After years of daily deadlines, Arma decided to leave the world of journalism to open his own studio where he concentrated on magazine and advertising work.
He shot successful campaigns for Fortune 500 companies, as well as covers for Time Magazine, People Magazine, Money, French Photo, and Ladies Home Journal. In 1972 he began his work with babies.
In the 1980s his work with costumed children showed on the covers of magazines, including consecutive Christmas covers for Ladies Home Journal.
Arma was the first person to publish a book solely of babies in costume. This started a trend and many would trail in his lead. To express his ecological concerns, Arma created his Please Save the Animals series of posters and greeting cards.
This series of babies dressed in animal outfits designed by him was a huge success worldwide.
Since then he has begun work on picture books and become successful with that as well. Arma has now authored 47 original books worldwide.
According to tomarma.com, “Publishers Weekly says of “We’re Going on Safari” “The pictures are delicious with the 3 dimensional feel and color saturation of old View-master vignettes. Toddler fan audiences, typically enthralled with photos of their peers, may just go ape for them.”’.