Teju Cole, author of Open City and a photographer himself, on the late Saul Leiter at The New Yorker:
The content of Saul Leiter’s photographs arrives on a sort of delay: it takes a moment after the first glance to know what the picture is about. You don’t so much see the image as let it dissolve into your consciousness, like a tablet in a glass of water. One of the difficulties of photography is that it is much better at being explicit than at being reticent. Precisely how the hypnotic and dreamlike feeling is achieved in Leiter’s work is a mystery, even to their creator.
Leiter died aged 89 on Tuesday this week. Read The New York Times obituary.
Dan: Do you know the source of this image? I have a sense of deja vu seeing it, but can’t place where. It’s good work, btw, and the adjective “dreamlike” suits.
Hi Finn. The image is ‘Don’t Walk,’ a photograph taken by Saul Leiter in 1952. Some of Leiter’s photographs have been used on book covers recently (I think Megan Wilson used one for a Chester Himes novel?) and I’ve seen this particular photo in a couple of slideshows since Leiter passed away. But I don’t know why it be familiar otherwise? Interestingly, I believe the ‘Don’t Walk’ signs were first installed in New York in 1952, so Leiter’s photograph was actually capturing something novel, not something iconic.
Thanks, Dan. I know a bit about Leiter’s work but didn’t know this photo was so early (it looks like something from the 1960s or 70s, with its grain and the quality of the colour hues). Part of its appeal (for me anyway) is its cinematographic quality. Looks like a movie still.