Outdoor Photography Magazine

Joel Meyerowitz on the power of colour

Image above: Truro, 1976 © JOEL MEYEROWITZ

Alongside other seminal figures (such as William Eggleston and Stephan Shore) Joel Meyerowitz was an early advocate of colour photography when there was resistance to viewing it as a serious art. Endorsing his move away from black & white, Meyerowitz said: ‘colour describes more things…when I say description, I don’t mean mere fact and the cold accounting of things in the frame. I really mean the sensation I get from things – their surface and colour – my memory of them in other conditions as well as their connotative qualities. Colour plays itself out along a richer band of feelings – more wavelengths, more radiance, more sensation.’

Image above: Bay-Sky, Provinctown, 1977 © JOEL MEYEROWITZ 

Permanently adopting colour photography in 1972, six years later Meryerowitz published Cape Light. Using a vintage 8×10 Deardoff view camera, Meryerowitz’s images are largely locations found across the coast and small towns of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Meditating on the colour, light and scale of area, the photographs are serene, luminous landscapes that look at colour as a sensorial and evocative experience. To coincide with the re-release of the highly successful book, Beetles+Huxley exhibit a set of prints from Cape Light.

Joel Meyerowitz: Cape Light

26 January to 20 February

Beetles+Huxley

3-5 Swallow Street

London

WIB 4DE

Find out more here

Image above: Cold Storage beach, 1976 © JOEL MEYEROWITZ