Retrospective by Joel Meyerowitz

Posted on June 22, 2012 by czed

joel meyerowitz

Joel Meyerowitz

is well know internationally as one of the great street photographers of our time and is likened to Stephen Shore and William Eggleston. He is best known for his sensitive photographs of people and situations. His way of handling light is still groundbreaking.

In this short video he talks about his “Retrospective” show at the Hôtel des Arts – a Toulon where he presents more than 140 photographs of the last 50 years.

He says “Photography has taught me many things. I feel that I’ve been a servant to photography. Its given me back whatever I could understand from its gifts and demands.”

One of the first things he learned from working on the street was “that when the moment arrives you just have to make a picture of the moment and often the frame itself isn’t a perfect frame. Its isn’t a perfect Cartier-Bresson classically organized frame” Joel says “it’s got a different kind of energy, its clumsier, it’s bolder.”

meyerowitz street

Though many would see his work as art, Joel looks at them differently, thinking of his pictures not as art, but as a fraction of a second in which his understanding and the world’s offering are unified in some ways that allows us to have a kind of open experience to share with whoever looks at the picture.

Almost mystically he summarizes his view of photography as “one of the strength of photography is that it show you were to go. By reading your images you begin more to understand who you are. I trusted right from the beginning that photography would tell me what my identity was, and offer me a path of knowing more about myself.”

meyerowitz roseville

Check out this recent interview post with Joel Meyerowitz as well.

Weekend Inspiration #11 – Street, Photojournalism and what it’s all about.

Posted on April 9, 2012 by czed

Joel Meyerowitz : Street photography is magical, balletic, physical. it’s ideas not just good pictures. A deepening experience in the world. That makes me feel alive and awake and conscious.

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Bikes of Phnom Penh

Posted on December 1, 2011 by czed

The other day an Australian guy got fined $800 and lost his licence for a month for transporting a BBQ on his motorbike. A silly (and dangerous) idea. But pretty creative, one could argue – and not really anything unusual in other countries.

One of the fun things traveling Asia is how people make use of streets, cars, bikes and motorbikes creatively. To me it always speaks of creativity, freedom, lack of fear and insurance policies limitations and a state of affairs that let’s people make their own decision in regards to how many people fit in a car, what they deem safe like when and how to cross a street. Which I clearly like .-)

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Melbourne CBD Black and White Street Photography

Posted on June 5, 2011 by czed

It was a nice winter’s day once again, and a Saturday at that, a good chance to grab the 50mm f1.4 and head into the city for a coffee and some photography.

Richard the Good Man

Posted on February 12, 2011 by czed

it is Saturday morning. 9am. In the City. The roads are empty and the first shop owners are just starting to prepare to open for the day. A few cafés already sell coffee, street-sweepers sweep, and I walk, D700 in hand, down Swanston Street. And then there is Richard, the street dweller who just got up somewhere around here. He must think I am a tourist with my camera, and as he starts talking about taking photos and how many images I can take for two dollars, we somehow connect. Richard, the 50+, bearded and tattooed man, with his baseball hat and his black tank-top and I. He’s offering me to take as many images as I want for $5, which I politely decline. I don’t want to pay for photos, I am just doing some street photography. We banter on a little bit, and I prepare to move onwhen he suddenly smiles: “Alright, just take the photo then”. He’s posing and moving his hat around, and it’s time to just direct him a little. Richard, I say, just show me your soul.

He transformes. Becomes serious, and real. Open shade, honest eyes. What a moment.

Richard

I walk on slowly, he besides me. I want to know more now. There’s something there. A story, a life, a tragedy, loss, grief, hope. We head over to a café. If he’d like a coffee, I ask? No, that wouldn’t work to well, he’s had a stubby already and coffee and beer don’t mix in the morning. Could he have some orange juice, and a bite to eat?

And then he bows his head. And in earnesty and sincerity blesses the food. In Jesus Name. I am struck and moved. A man on the street. A man with common faith.

We start talking about faith, and he tells me that there are a lot of good man out there. Society doesn’t see them, but they are there. He talks about his wife, the kids, and now grandkids – who he hasn’t seen for years. He talks about his mother in Geelong and how he misses his daughters. How much is true, how much made. I can’t tell.

A shift takes place in me, gone is all ambition. I am humbled by his simplicity of life.

Richard's Tatoo

As we part he asks – just to make sure – if I didn’t have some spare change.

The Beauty of Old

Posted on June 7, 2010 by czed

I was just moving from one train carriage to the other and grabbed an empty seat without paying much attention to the persons opposite me, when my eyes caught a glimpse of the unusual. An old brown leather bag, held by old leathery hands, an old brown leather jacket and an old brown leather vest, with an old brown tie. I looked up slowly. In front of me sat an old man and his old wife. Their hair was white, a bit longish, quite artistic. A chiseled face, deep wrinkles and weathered skin. An green amnesty international badge on his tie. They where dozing off into slumber-land between stops, gently talking to each other on the odd occasion, checking the time on their watch – being totally at peace and calm in this early afternoon commuter train. What a wonderful couple.

Where was my camera? I was wrestling with the idea of introducing myself to them, and asking if I could come over to their house this Saturday and just follow their day with a camera. Or just even take their portraits. I had to capture them. So unique! They would have been well in their 90′s. What would their day look like? It occured to me – as I slowly pulled out my iPhone – that they had no electronic gadget on them. Their world seemed to be thoroughly analogue.

So with the best camera available, I took that shot. Just the hands, just the jacket and bag.

I followed them with my eyes, as they got up to get off the train. She smiles at me. He took her hand, and together they walked down the platform towards the exit. I wonder what these photos could have been. Did I miss an opportunity? I got one photograph which speaks to me of that beauty of old.