From the local library I took out a recently published retrospective on Joel Meyerowitz, published last year by Laurence King Publishing in London. It's a huge body of work from the 1960's right up to today and shows the delight and fascination that Meyerowitz has with the photograph and photography. He hasn't stood still and his enthusiasm and openess is infectious. His ability to witness and capture a scene is best illustrated from a photograph he took on a Parisian street corner, 1967. It's my favourite photograph, every prt of it is perfectly meausured moment in time. As Meyerowitz said himself: ”A young man lies on the sidewalk with his arms outstretched. A workman with a hammer casually steps over his fallen body. A crowd stands at the entrance to the métro, stunned by curiosity into inaction. A cyclist and a pedestrian each turn over their shoulders to catch a last glimpse, while around them the traffic glides by. Which is the greater drama of life in the city: the fictitious clash between two figures that is implied, or the indifference of the one to the other that is actual? A photograph allows such contradictions to exist in everyday life; more than that, it encourages them. Photography is about being exquisitely present.”

Joel Meyerowitz, Paris, France, 1967