In the opening scene of In No Great Hurry, the fantastic documentary by Tomas Leach about the life and work of the great Saul Leiter, we see Saul in his apartment flipping through the newspaper. “I just take pictures of somebody’s window. That’s not such a great achievement,” he says. Except that it was a great achievement. For decades, Saul Leiter captured the streets and the people of New York in a way nobody did before and few have since. Whether we’re talking about color, black and white, environmental scenes, or intimate portraits, Saul’s vision was singular.
The other day, my friend Andy Adams posted a terrific edition of his FlakPhoto Digest (which you should definitely subscribe to) all about Saul. One of the things I love about Substack—and this is something that I want to start integrating into my own offerings—is how collaborative it can be. For Andy’s latest post, he asked for submissions about Saul from the FlakPhoto community, and they responded beautifully. I won’t steal Andy’s thunder by telling you much about it and instead just invite you to take a look for yourself.
Re-watched this over the weekend... what a great little film.