“REMARKABLE PEOPLE! If you are a redhead or know someone who is, I’d like to make your portrait, call …” and those 2.5 percenters of the population who learned of the ad showed up on the deck of Joel Meyerowitz’s home in Cape Cod, some with scraped knees, some pale or sunburned, but each framed in a corona of copper, coral and all the shades of red that inspired the street, portrait and landscape photographer who, in 1972, made the decision to shoot in color when most of his “artiste” peers adhered to black and white.
For this collection, the Bronx-born Meyerowitz recalls the “blue light of sea and sky,” and being inspired by the redheads, how, “their hair and the exotic markings of their skin in sunlight became even rosier and more astonishing in the blue atmosphere.” The subjects sat down and told stories of being teased and feeling different, and finally feeling proud of what he calls their “blood knot.” What began as a project about “ordinary people” became a book about a unique segment of our population that spans race, age and geography. Beginning with his call to action, each frank posture, gaze and background make clear the artist’s professed strategy of eschewing a game plan and simply going outside and “standing eye-to-eye with anyone who has found their way to me.” This new edition of the original 1991 classic publication offers 16 new images, offering a fresh look, a very life affirming look at people and Provincetown. —Gwynned Vitello
Damiani Books, damianieditore.com
