Saul Leiter - The Man Searching For Beauty

Today I would like to talk about the American photographer who helped to shape the New York School of photography, someone who is said to be a pioneer of color photography. The man searching for beauty Lets talk about Saul Leiter.

Saul Leiter was born in Pittsburg and it seemed for a long time that he would go in a different direction than being an artist. influenced by his father he studied to become a Rabbi but he left theology school and moved to New York at the age of 23 to become an artist.  He actually got his first camera (which was a Detrola camera) long before this time from his mother. At first he actually wanted to become a painter and when he came to Manhattan he enrolled in art school. His early paintings were full of colours and inspired by expressionism. In his classes he befriended Richard Pousette-Dart who was a painter as well as William Eugene Smith America photojournalist. It was actually Smith who encouraged him to pursue photography. He spent the majority of his career documenting the neighbourhood of Manhattan’s East Village but he also shot commercially. He worked for fashion magazines such as Vogue, Elle or Harper’s Bazar. and even thought those photos are pretty good you might be wondering why I picked Saul  and want to talk about him. 

Saul was not only doing photography for work but also, as we can say now-days, for pleasure. He found a liking in this search for beauty on the streets. Unlike many other photographers at that time who shot mostly black and white he liked to shoot colors and used his unique perception to utilise them. 

“I believe If I may be old-fashioned I believe there is such a thing as search for beauty. “ - Saul Leiter

As we can see he was more interested in shapes, light and colors than peoples expressions. He said “I was more fascinated by raindrops on the window than taking a photo of a famous person”. When characterising the themes in his photographs I would say he liked to shoot umbrellas, different kinds of weather such as heavy snow and rain  and he also greatly used negative space that gives his photos a kind of minimalist touch and abstraction. Sometimes when you look at his pictures I feel like you are not immediately aware what the subject is. Thats also something that kind of defines his style as many people would label it as abstract expressionism. He was looking for colors on the streets such as red umbrellas, yellow taxi cabs or traffic lights.

When we talk about negative space this reminds me little bit of the style of another great photographer Fan Ho who I have talked about previously. Fan Ho used over and under exposing together with cropping to isolate his subjects while Saul used negative space. I like to think about that as about two completely different styles to pursue similar reults. Or maybe its just me. let me know down in the comments.

“I think if you know enough about photography you realise that nothing is really that new.” - Saul Leiter

When we get back to Saul’s use of color. He has been often referred to as a pioneer of color photography. He liked to shoot colors that complement each other with not too much saturation. It's also good to mention he liked to used aged and damaged film. 

In this great documentary that I recommend you to watch if you want to find out more about him, he said his life he has never been driven by fame or money.

It is always inspiring to see someones body of work with completely different style covering a similar topic and this makes me want to go out and try out all those techniques I have just seen. I am going to do that and post some photos to my instagram. So if you have an account feel free to check out my photos! Let me know in the comments what is you favourite picture of Saul.