Photographer Joel Meyerowitz on the pleasure of seeing

Like his pho­tographs, Joel Meyerowitz​’s rever­ies are per­fect­ly com­posed, mul­ti­lay­ered reflec­tions of the world we live in. Com­plex yet acces­si­ble, they meet you where you are – as does Meyerowitz when he looks back at his jour­ney to become one of the most influ­en­tial con­tem­po­rary artists of our time.

His first biog­ra­phy, The Plea­sure of See­ing: Con­ver­sa­tions with Joel Meyerowitz on Six­ty Years in the Life of Pho­tog­ra­phy, offers a look behind the scenes of a long and sto­ried career. The book sees Meyerowitz teams up with his­to­ri­an and pho­tog­ra­ph­er Loren­zo Bra­ca for a series of con­ver­sa­tions explor­ing pho­tog­ra­phy as an exten­sion of being.

Meyerowitz shares his knowl­edge, wis­dom and under­stand­ing gleaned from a life­time work­ing across for­mats to engage with new ways of see­ing, think­ing, and mov­ing through the world. He con­sid­ers essen­tial states of instinct, intu­ition, pres­ence, flu­id­i­ty, con­nec­tion and iden­ti­ty the way oth­ers might speak about gear, tech, or film speed.

“I was for­tu­nate to start at a time when pho­tog­ra­phy as an art form was quite insignif­i­cant,” says Meyerowitz. ​“In the ear­ly 60s, the only way you could make a liv­ing was by using pho­tog­ra­phy to either do adver­tis­ing or sto­ries. I saw the seduc­tion: mak­ing mon­ey could become so seduc­tive that you would lose your way easily.”

Hav­ing trained as a painter and stud­ied art his­to­ry, Meyerowitz ​“had a sense of want­i­ng to main­tain the high ground,” he remem­bers. ​“I want­ed to be true to myself. From the get go, I had to be clear about my iden­ti­ty and what pho­tog­ra­phy meant to me. It was about sur­viv­ing and hav­ing the free­dom to do the work that I want­ed to do. At that point, I did­n’t have much in the way of basic needs so it was an easy deci­sion to try to stay pure.”

Grow­ing up in the Bronx in the 1940s and ​‘50s, Meyerowitz devel­oped an innate ease mov­ing through the streets of New York, hon­ing sen­si­bil­i­ties per­fect­ly suit­ed to pho­tog­ra­phy. Attuned to his envi­ron­ment, Meyerowitz sensed moments as they were about to unfold, the cam­era becom­ing an exten­sion of himself. 

“Out on the street, you have to be fine­ly tuned so that you and your instru­ment are one,” he says. ​“Mak­ing the pho­to­graph means that you read that space and sense when to move so you will be there when these ener­gies cre­ate a visu­al phrase. That kind of atten­tive­ness is not pure­ly intel­lec­tu­al. It’s also phys­i­cal and requires being on your toes, almost like a dancer or an athlete.”

The results speak for them­selves. Whether mak­ing street por­traits or still lifes, land­scapes or doc­u­men­tary, Meyerowitz is always present in his work, hold­ing space for view­ers to come.

“When I think the aes­thet­ics are mul­ti­plic­i­ty of things, it’s not only the visu­al under­stand­ing of how to make a frame – it’s how you put your­self in the frame,” he says. ​“It’s a liv­ing thing that you are worth walk­ing through and keep­ing alive by the very fact of your presence.”

The Plea­sure of See­ing: Con­ver­sa­tions with Joel Meyerowitz on Six­ty Years in the Life of Pho­tog­ra­phy is out now via Dami­ani Books.

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