Saul Leiter: The Man Who Brought Me Back To Color

 Saul Leiter (3 December 1923 - 26 November 2013) was an American photographer who was active from the mid-1940s until his death in 2013.

Leiter was in the first instance mostly known for his fashion photography for Vogue, Harper's Bazaar and other big magazines. His personal work, which was mostly in color, was only discovered and printed in the later stages of his life, from the 1990's onward, and only really recognized and appreciated after his death.

Searching for more information on several photographers whose work I admire, I discovered the documentary below. It has many take-aways I learned from Leiter's work and his life.

From a photographic perspective, the biggest discovery was for me how he captured color. While I have been focusing on black-and-white photography for the last couple of years, his work showed me the beauty of color work and enticed me to start experimenting with color photography again.

His use of color in composition is very abstract. The human form, for example, even when recognizable is often transferred to an abstract that complements the composition of the image rather than being the subject of the image.

But it is not only his technical approach to photography and his immense body of work that inspires me.

In the video, he shares his, what I would like to call, philosophical approach to photography. Although being a bit the 'grumpy old man' type in the documentary - and keep in mind that this was filmed just one year before he passed away - he has a lot of good life lessons for the aspiring photographer and professional alike.

He displays a lot of humility about his work and his own importance. And I like how he also downplays the importance of other people: "a window covered with raindrops interests me more than a photograph of a famous person."

And although he recognizes that "nothing in photography is new", his continuous search for beauty kept him creating images until the end of his life, "enjoying taking pictures, not caring too much what others think of your work."

To me, his is a great example of continuous development, continuous looking for subject matter. As he said "everything is suitable to be photographed. Everything is a photograph" and "photography teaches you to look and appreciate all kind of things."

He just "enjoy[ed] catching certain moments", and is that not the essence of street photography?!