Joel Meyerowitz

Joel Meyerowitz, photographer, teacher, author of 18 books including Cape Light.

Among the first Meyerowitz photos I saw

Joel Meyerowitiz has unquestionably given me enormous pleasure. My first memories of him are similar to this expansive view of the ocean from a bleached white porch. Stark, stunning, yet somehow warm and human. Feeling like Greece in America.

Ever since I hung out the family laundry before a back drop of gently sloping grasses dotted with Guernsey's and Holsteins, I have loved clotheslines as much as the sea I splashed in, and those aged never-ending house-surrounding porches my family lounged on. I've photographed them all myself, so it has always been kind of a toss-up as to which of Meyerowitz' photos I'm most passionate about.

I'm pleased to have found videos of Meyerowitz that I can show you. Watch him work. I love the way he handles the camera!

The Porch, 1977

Poster

Not just a casual lad

As much as I've favored the works of Meyerowitz, I'm not surprised to find that I knew little about him. I don't remember seeing a photo of him before today, and THAT I found on his own site. I was charmed to read a tiny bit about his father(It's on his site!), but I confess, it isn't necessary for me to know the artist, or his personal life. After all even performing artists are often very private persons, and that 's just fine with me. In fact, I'm happiest letting the artist speak for himself. And here, with photography, we are challenged by the need for the artist to protect his work, and if I hadn't found his own professional site, I wouldn't be able to show you more that a few pieces that are being sold on All Posters and at Amazon.

Before the days of the internet, I'd managed to become acqainted with his porches, his clotheslines and the beaches that stretched out behind, presumably, the places his loved. I'm not quite sure where I first saw his works, but I don't think it was through his books. More likely what I did see came from newspaper and magazine reviews, possibly exhibitions and their posters as I would have been looking. Forty years ago I got around alot and saw lots of shows. As for his books, I don't remember knowing that he was publishing, but it's a strong memory, being pleased to see his work showcased in his own book, when I was surprised by his collection of Redheads. While I am an artist, looking back, I am now dumbfounded to find that Meyerowitz has been enterprising, quite enterprising, and certainly not just a casual lad with a camera and a prodigious talent.

Then I discovered his "Redheads"

should say his wonderful, freckled redheads

Joel Meyerowitz: Redheads

Damiani

~~$40.1~~ $38.56

VISIT The works of Joel Meyerowitz, photographer

They always say "go to the source." When we go to the artist, himself, we know, one, that he has the ability before anyone else to give us the best display of his talent.

I went looking this morning and found very few pieces that I could post, not to mention post legally, I was one happy person, more than happy to find his own site. I'm helping you link right to his own choice of what to view, and I hope you'll have a lovely time there.

While the works of Meyerowitz are show-cased in many places on the web, no one does it better than the artist right here on his own website, so, two, you can access his site below. I would recommend searching the "archives" for Provincetown, clothesline, sea, dusk, dawn and similar terms.

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At the Water's Edge

Bulfinch Pr

Only $39.95

Opportunity to watch the artist work

Along your author's way

Long before the internet

Having stood for hours browsing the shelfs of wonderful old-time book dealers and libraries, I remember peering from the top-floor out arched windows, down rain emersed streets of a mid-western big-ten campus. What a picture THAT makes in my memory. I haven't always carried a camera. Pencils, oil paints and assundry tools came long before that.

I am a reader, a big reader. I've explored the libraries of bookstores and galleries of mega-metropolises and tiny towns. Let me go fishing out in no-mans land, if I'm there more than a week-end I'm at the library, in the barber shops and grocery stores for their "surprises." And in the many quiet, paper-shuffling, page-turning rooms I've known, I gotten my first looks at many artists, like Meyerowitz for instance. There was a quiet bookstore in Aspen in 1975, the first where I remember being encouraged to sit and read new books--and on a comfy sofa. Later I found more places like this where I found myself welcome to happily linger in stacked and chock-full isles, in pre-re-development neighborhoods. As much as I use the "net" I still prefer first-hand browsing.