he is a photographer; his first book of photographs, "pictures i had to take", was published in 2003; its follow-up, "looking hard at unexpected things", was published in 2006. his third book, "1.3 – images from my phone", a book of photographs taken with his camera phone, was published in 2009. an exhibition of his work was held in april 2011 at the museum of the city of new york, titled "joel grey/a new york life." his fourth book, "the billboard papers: photographs by joel grey", came out in 2013 and depicts the many-layered billboards of new york city.