Street Smarts: Saul Leiter
Saul Leiter may have been the earliest to extensively use color film for street photography, is often considered to have created photos that look like paintings, used unique techniques that enabled him to create photos that stand out from the crowd, and had so little concern for seeking out fame and prestige from his photos that they were nearly lost to history never to be enjoyed by the masses who have come to love and appreciate his work today.
“I may be old-fashioned. But I believe there is such a thing as a search for beauty – a delight in the nice things in the world. And I don’t think one should have to apologize for it.”
– Saul Leiter, In No Great Hurry, 2013
BIO
Saul Leiter's life as an artists is one that might have never happened had he not taken a leap of faith, dropped out of school, and sought out the opportunity to be a painter by moving to New York in his early 20s. Saul's father was a highly regarded rabbi and it was expected that he would follow in his fathers footsteps by becoming a rabbi himself. After starting to pursue the goal his family set for him he left theology school stating that "I got fed up with the whole religious world and all the preoccupations with purity and nobility and observance - I wanted to be free of those things."
After moving to New York Leiter worked with the painter Pousette-Dart who introduced him to photojournalist W. Eugene Smith, both men encouraged Leiter to work more heavily in photography on top of following his passion for painting. This brought him into the sphere of Robert Frank and Diane Arbus, two legendary street photographers in their own right, all three would later be considered part of the New York School of Photographers by art curator Jane Livingston for their work that contributed to changing and elevating street photography in a number of ways throughout the 40s, 50s, and 60s. However, the recognition for Leiter's contributions wouldn't truly come until much later in his life.
EARLY RECOGNITION: MOMA SHOWS AND FASHION PHOTOGRAPHY
Throughout most of his life Saul Leiter would only be recognized for his fashion photography. His street photography work was involved in a 1957 conference called "Experimental Photography in Color" at New York's Museum of Modern Art, but any larger exhibition of his work or book publishing of any significance didn't come until the early 2000s. Street photography remained a passion and hobby for Leiter. “I started out as a fashion photographer. One cannot say that I was successful but there was enough work to keep me busy. I collaborated with Harper’s Bazaar and other magazines. I had work and I made a living. At the same time, I took my own photographs."
Looking at his fashion photography informs how he developed as a photographer over the years; obscured faces, out of focus shots through pains of glass, motion, and irregular framing. They show flairs of his unique style as he never takes the easy way out to showcase the models and clothes that are on display in any kind of simple studio lighting and backdrop scenario. Instead, he shot his fashion portraits on the streets and used of natural light, reflections, and filled the frame all in ways that highlight how his fashion work encapsulated his style nearly has much as the street photos he eventually became revered for.
Often sighted for producing beautiful color photos, Saul Leiter has created outstanding black and white photos as well. His emphasis on odd angles, using glass and atmoshperic elements, motion blur, and contrast between light and shadow broadcast what was to come for his later color work. Black and white was the norm at the time. For example, Bresson claimed that color "interfered with formal priorities" and the director of MoMA at the time dismissed color photography entirely. Nonetheless, Leiter shot color anyway and may have actually been the first to heavily use color film for the genre, but wasn't given this title since his work didn't gain recognition until much later. According to Leiter shooting with color was simply something that came naturally to him. “I find it strange that anyone would believe that the only thing that matters is black and white. It’s just idiotic. The history of art is the history of color. The cave paintings had color ... [But] there has always been the idea in certain circles that form is more important, that to have too much color is not good, it distracts from your concentration.” and in regard to the fact that even though black and white was the norm of the day he's stated, "I never felt the need to do what everyone else did. And I wasn’t troubled by the fact that other people were doing other things."
His color photos were often created with inexpensive expired film that he loved, because of the surprise that came with their unpredictable color shifts. Many attribute his background in painting to have played a major influence on the way that Leiter's photos looked, and it's easy to see how the two informed one another when looking at his paintings and photos side-by-side as a certain air is carried through both mediums that can be defined as relaxed and subdued. Additionally, it's hard to ignore the influence of one medium on the other as they both remained passions that he practiced throughout the course of his life, stating in a late interview in regard to a question of whether or not he continued to paint after his photography career began; "I’ve painted ever since. I have the largest collection of Saul Leiters in the world. There are a few thousand of them. Quite a few of them need more work. I need another 10 years to complete them all."
Saul Leiter was way ahead of his time and is still unique in the way he captured his street photos, because they go against the grain in terms of what is typically considered "good" street photography by many. Shooting with long focal lengths to create compressed frames with shallow depths of field, he would regularly shoot at focal lengths between 70mm to 150mm which allowed him to keep his physical distance from his subjects when shooting, ensuring not to draw attention to himself and added compression to his photos which flattened everything within the frame and is said to have added a more painterly quality to them as colors coalesce into one another since there is less definition between individual objects.
Another tactic he often used was to go out of his way to take photos that kept the subjects faces hidden or out of frame. There's a heavy emphasis in a lot of street photos to get close to people and fill the frame with subjects faces and expressions which is regularly absent from Leiter's work.
He also had a tendency to lean into subject matter that wasn't as typically sought after and use the elements to heighten the look and feel of his photos. Examples of this being [find subject matter that is irregular included in his work] in terms of subject matter and using rain, snow, windows, vehicles, and reflections to frame his subjects, add depth to his photos, and at times make things more abstract and irregular than his contemporaries.
Finally, his persistent use of vertical framing and off-center compositions made his work different from the centered subjects on horizontal frames seen in so many other photographs. The use of all of these techniques in tandem makes Saul Leiter truly stand out in the world of street photographers. …
Many street photographers travel extensively across the globe to find a diverse pallette to make up what they put into their bodies of work. Often advice is given to street photographers that it helps to get lost or get out of your everyday environment. "I didn't feel you had to travel to do photography." Just like his techniques, Saul Leiter had a different approach. A large amount of Saul's work was created within two blocks of his East Village home, where he lived for over 60 years starting in 1952. And, again, in a different fashion from many who take on street photography and look to capture the intensitity and grit of the streets, especially in New York City, Leiter's work is calm, positive, and often shows the solitude of individuals instead of the intense magnitude of the masses. The distinctly unique characteristics of Leiter's work are highlighted in a few other ways.
One being that instead of looking the capture the "decisive moment" Leiter has been regarded by some as the master of the "indecisive moment" since he often captured moments where his subjects weren't really doing anything aside from attending to the dull and monotonous aspects of every day life. Another harder to replicate characteristic are the fashion, vehicles, and colors of the time. In the 1950s and 1960s a lot more attention was paid to getting dressed up to go out. This isn't to say that no one cares about their appearence anymore, but the fedoras, coats, dresses, and overall style of the time lends itself to a beautiful aestetic that has a classic cinematic tone to it that would be incredibly hard to replicate with the way the most dress today. This similarly is represented in the colors, shape, and style of the classic cars and yellow cabs that roamed the streets of New York during that same time period.
Unlike many of the social media obsessed narcissistic clout chasers of today; it seems that Saul Leiter couldn't've cared less if fame came his way as he has stated, “I’ve never been overwhelmed with a desire to become famous. It’s not that I didn’t want to have my work appreciated, but for some reason – maybe it’s because my father disapproved of almost everything I did – in some secret place in my being was a desire to avoid success."
Regardless if Leiter wanted it or not; all fans of photography and his work can agree that we're lucky that recognition did eventually come Leiter's way, even if it came so late in his life. Many sources sight that if it weren't for a few instances that brought his work to new eyes all of the thousands of beautiful frames that continue to be restored, printed, and presented [by the Saul Leiter Foundation ???] to this day may have been lost to the sands of time. Those few instances were a 1992 book about early NYC street photographers titled The New School: Photographs 1936-1963, which started to bring Leiters work to new eyes, a 2005 exhibition of his work that later turned into the book Early Color which truly pushed him into the limelight in the photography world, and a documentary released in 2013 title No Great Hurry: 13 Lessons in Life with Saul Leiter.
All of this came as a result of a lifetime love of photography. He worked in the fashion industry shooting a style of photography that he had passion for which ebbed and flowed, but it was all in the name of making a living that allowed him to continue to create the art that he was always passionate about; painting which he did throughout the course of his life and street photography which he continued to pursue until his death in 2013 at age 90. Not in pursuit of fame and fortune, but simply for the love of creation.
“I spent a great deal of my life being ignored. I was always very happy that way. Being ignored is a great privilege. That is how I think I learnt to see what others do not see and to react to situations differently. I simply looked at the world, not really prepared for anything.”