Author Archives: joelmeyerowitz2014

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About joelmeyerowitz2014

STUDIO BIO: Joel Meyerowitz is an award-winning photographer whose work has appeared in over 350 exhibitions in museums and galleries around the world. He was born in New York in 1938 and began photographing in 1962. Meyerowitz is a “street photographer” in the tradition of Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Frank, although he works exclusively in color. As an early advocate of color photography (early-60’s) he was instrumental in changing the attitude toward color photography from one of resistance to nearly universal acceptance. His first book “Cape Light” is considered a classic work of color photography and has sold over 100,000 copies during its 26-year life. He has published nineteen other books including “Bystander: The History of Street Photography” and “Provence: Lasting Impressions.” In 1998 Meyerowitz produced and directed his first film, ”POP”, an intimate diary of a three-week road trip he made with his son Sasha and his father, Hy. This odyssey has as its central character an unpredictable, street wise and witty 87-year-old with Alzheimer’s. It is both an open-eyed look at aging and a meditation on the significance of memory. Within a few days of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, Meyerowitz began to create an archive of the destruction and recovery at Ground Zero. He was the only photographer who was granted unimpeded access to the site. Meyerowitz took a meditative stance toward the work and workers there, systematically documenting the painful work of rescue, recovery, demolition and excavation. The World Trade Center Archive includes more than 8,000 images and will be available for research, exhibition, and publication at museums in New York and Washington, DC. In 2001 The Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the U.S. State Department asked the Museum of the City of New York and Meyerowitz to create a special exhibition of images from the archive to send around the world. The images traveled to more than 200 cities in 60 countries and over three and a half million people viewed the exhibition. In addition to the traveling shows, Meyerowitz was invited to represent the United States at the 8th Venice Biennale for Architecture with his photographs from the World Trade Center Archives. In September 2002, he exhibited 73 images – some as large as 22 feet – in lower Manhattan. Some recent books are: “Taking My Time”, his fifty year, two volume, retrospective book by Phaidon Press of London, “Provence: lasting Impressions,” co-authored with his wife Maggie Barrett, a book on the late work of Paul Strand by Aperture, "Glimpse": Photographs From Moving Car, which was a solo show at MoMA, and "Joel Meyerowitz Retrospective", published in conjunction with his recent show at NRW Forum in Dusseldorf. Meyerowitz is a Guggenheim fellow and a recipient of both the NEA and NEH awards. His work is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, the Boston Museum of Fine Art, The Art Institute of Chicago, and many others.

JULY 2, 2015

Gianni

Yesterday I mentioned that sitting around and talking could often produce spontaneous portrait studies, and that like street photography, if one was observant some rich gestural images might come from it. The next day our friend Gianni stopped by, as he does almost every day, to hang out and play with us as we have been doing for 20 years now.

The positions we were sitting in gave me this chance to really watch the Italian in him in action, with every nuance of his story needing an expressive gesture to move the opera along. What the story was about I can no longer remember, or as the Italians say, “chi se ne frega,” who gives a damn, anyway.

And then, when he was done, he gave me the sweetest, most sheepish look, which endeared him to me even more.

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JULY 1, 2015

The Present

Sometimes just sitting around and talking offers unexpected gestures and expressions, and can often lead to a kind of intimate portraiture that doesn’t depend on the ‘pose,’ but rather flows from the state of being you and the subject find themselves in. Especially when it is family or friends, and the camera doesn’t present an intrusive presence into the mix.

I love this relaxed way of seeing, and in a way it is like street photography, but the kind where one is simply out for a walk and living in the wonder of the present moment. It’s always the present in photography.

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JUNE 30, 2015

The Gift

Silvia had come by with one of her delicate tortes made with eggs, milk and flour all from the farm. You just can’t get it any fresher than that. She was so sweet when she brought it over, innocent like a kid in some ways, even though she’s a mother of two. I saw that quality coming from her and responded with a photograph, and immediate salivation.

Maggie and I ate at least half of it sitting in the shade of the oak tree in the back of the house. That day was nearly 90 degrees, and even that didn’t stop us from devouring it. And it lead to a portrait, and a still life, too.

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JUNE 29, 2015

Sandwich

We went to the train station to drop off my niece. The train in Buonconvento is usually one car  long, and runs on a narrow gauge rail line, so not much in the way of excitement happens there. But among the few travelers waiting at the station there was, and only for the briefest of moments, this suggestive little morsel of photographic delight sandwiched between the layers of clouds and countryside, glass and brick, signage and sunlight.

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JUNE 28, 2015

Be In It

Nature in full force is a beautiful spectacle. Where do the colors come from? How did the clouds become tinged with that faint magenta tone when all the light seems to be mixed into a grey?

To stand in the path of all that energy and let it sweep towards me is one of the joys of living in nature. I always experience the feeling that I must go out into it rather than run for shelter. It was the same for me during my years photographing on Cape Cod. When the weather was at it’s worst – then it was at its best – and the invitation was clear; be in it!

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JUNE 27, 2015

Immediacy

Reno Piano designed a winery in the Maremma region of Tuscany which had an image inside of it that was immediately powerful and breathtaking in the way it presented its succession of various first impressions. At once an amphitheater, a boxing ring, a stage set, a concert hall, and finally a vault for barrels of wine.

But first one approached through a valley of vineyards that rolled gently toward the sea. Hidden, low in the landscape, was a building of strong color contrast which barely showed itself until one was at its door. Inside was a modern marvel of the art and science of winemaking. But for me the ‘theater’ was the emotional heart of the place. I have never entered a modern space devoted to one form of production that moved me in such a way. Maggie, felt it too, and instantly responded with her dancer’s past coming back into play.

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JUNE 26, 2015

All is Being Lost

In a roadside restaurant in the Maremma region of Tuscany I watched this man feed his Alzheimer’s-ish mother. Having cared for my own Alzheimer father I recognized the tenderness and patience he brought to the   task. The roles are reversed at this stage of life; the parent is the 3 or 4 year old, and the child assumes the parent role, and often, in this situation, the deepening absence of the parent doesn’t bring the joy one gets with the awakening of the child to the world around them.

All is being lost and yet there is nothing to do but love and care for them while watching the decline. But every once in a while there is the briefest moment of return to lucidity and the present, and like photography, if we are present, we get the gift of their awakening, and then it’s gone.

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JUNE 24, 2015

In Our Own Backyard

Sometimes there are natural forms that approach perfection. The shape of this tree has spoken to me for the four years we’ve been coming to this place, and I realize now that I have been photographing it casually and repeatedly in all lights and seasons.

While I was doing the photo a day series I probably added this tree to it many times on days when I was working in the studio and didn’t get out to do anything special. It could be said that it was a ‘fall back position’ image, but not merely that, since it made me look carefully at what was right in my own backyard. A good working principle for all of us.

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