Joel Meyerowitz is one of the pioneers of color photography, as well as an essential reference figure for street photography, large-format photography, and portraits. The Pleasure of Seeing is his first biography, the book offers a look behind the scenes of the life and career of one of America’s photographic living legends. In conversation with historian and photographer Lorenzo Braca, Meyerowitz speaks vividly about his beginnings, studying art history, meeting Robert Frank, photographing on the streets of New York City with Tony Ray-Jones and Garry Winogrand, traveling extensively across America and Europe, learning from John Szarkowski, director of photography at MoMA, working on numerous exhibitions and publications, photographing at Ground Zero in 2001 and 2002, and about the most recent still lifes and self-portraits projects.
The book contains over one hundred pictures, including Joel’s most iconic photographs as well as new and previously unpublished material. This comprehensive visual biography testifies to the author’s continuing evolution throughout the six decades of his career and discusses his work in relation to his personal life, to the history of photographs and to the incessant transformation of the medium.
Meyerowitz reveals anecdotes, personal memories, and the story behind many of his famous photographs; he discusses the value of the visual image as well as technical details concerning cameras and lenses, the printing process, films and sensors. The discussion resounds with Meyerowitz’s philosophy, his vital and instinctive approach to photography, his continuous search for personal expression that evades cliche and trivialization. In this volume, Meyerowitz metaphorically opens the doors of his photographic workshop and invites the reader to share the amazement and sense of wonder with which, thanks to photography, he has always observed the world.
