Where I Find Myself: JOEL MEYEROWITZ
It is huge and heavy. It calls for attention yet it is gentle and not intimidating at all.
Reading JOEL MEYEROWITZ Where I Find Myself is a very calm, solemn journey of viewing and understanding an important photographer’s body of work.
The coffee table book is a hundred and fifty-two pages with four hundred images.
The heavy weight of the book is a good metaphor for the rich and heavy history embedded within its pages.
“Organized in reverse chronological order, Where I Find Myself spans Joel Meyerowitz’s whole career to date, running from his most recent pictures all the way back to a very previously early unseen still life.”
Deciding to arrange the photos in the book in inverse chronological order made the experience more interesting. It’s like unfolding layers and layers of artworks as you flip from one page to the next.
“Photography, right from the beginning, has taught me to pay close attention, which is what I also demand when looking at photographs, I am most pleased when a photograph provides a space for one to simply enter into it, where time can be spent just looking, and where one can decide for oneself what might be of interest. Being an artist is really about consciousness.” – Joel Meyerowitz
Although each chapter is different from the next, you can still get a sense of subtle coherence from all of Meyerowitz works.
It just shows how Joel as a photographer can shoot using different mediums, cross multiple genres with a myriad of subjects and can still capture an amazing photograph. Whether it is still life, a portrait, a landscape, or a street photograph, he consistently and continuously tells stories.
I was particularly drawn to Chapter 4: Portraits (2017-1980) not only because I love taking portraits myself but also because of the stillness and intimacy that you can feel from each of the portraits.
Chapter 8: On the road (1967-1964) is also one of my favorite chapters filled with compelling reportage work. Meyerowitz’ ability to capture split second moments from random street scenes is truly remarkable and inspiring. His street work overflows with life and stories that invites you to linger and process the photos.
I love the accompanying texts written by Joel Meyerowitz himself that accompanies each chapter of the book. It makes the reading experience more as an intimate and spiritual journey.
Overall, its rich contents lives up to its huge appearance. Where I Find Myself is a poetic, introspective, entertaining photographic journey.
Where I Find Myself is the first major single book retrospective of one of America's leading photographers.
The book is organized in inverse chronological order and spans Meyerowitz's entire career to date. It covers all of his great projects: his photos inspired by the artist Morandi, his work on trees, his exclusive coverage of Ground Zero, his trips in the footsteps of Robert Frank across the US, his experiments comparing color and black and white pictures, and of course his iconic street photography work. The text is all by Joel Meyerovitz himself and the book coincides with a major retrospective show in Berlin.
About the Author
Joel Meyerowitz started making spontaneous color photographs on the streets of New York in 1962 with friends such as Tony Ray-Jones and Garry Winogrand. He has since become known as one of the most important street photographers of his generation. Instrumental in changing attitudes towards color photography in the 1970s, he is known as a pioneer, an important innovator, and a highly influential teacher.
Where I Find Myself is available from Laurence King Publishing
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