The Unseen Saul Leiter

This extraordinary book of Saul Leiter's photography would never have come into fruition without Margit Erb and her husband, who knew and looked over Saul Leiter's shoulder when he was alive. Erb was in the documentary about Saul Leiter. Here is the final paragraph of the introduction to Saul Leiter's exquisite photos, which never would have been reproduced in this book for the public to bear witness, enjoy and savor without Erb's thoughtful effort: "Early one morning, around the time I was writing this text, I had a dream about Saul. I have had many recurring dreams since he passed, and not all of them good. Some of them are of anxiety-provoking events, like his studio is full of water and his belongings are floating up to my chin while I frantically try to rescue everything. Or he has returned to the studio and really hates the clean windows, and then he starts packing everything up in a fury. But in this particular dream I see Saul, and I am falling over in my own tears, in happiness that he's back on the planet. My heart bursts with joy. We pat each other on the shoulder and cry and laugh sweetly. We feel content and peaceful together. And then I remember the book - this very book! My joy turns to pure excitement. 'You have to see the incredible images we found for your new book,' I say. 'So many, won't believe it. We're in the final stages of selecting. There's still time to choose. Will you take a look?' At that point in the dream Saul just shakes his head and smiles, 'No,' he says, 'that won't be necessary. Surprise me.' And, boy, are the images in this book a wonderful surprise by a photographer who broke every rule!

The style & look of Leiter’s work is never dull. Subtle perhaps, but always compelling. The more I look through the book - page by page, I’ve discovered Saul’s photography takes me away. I suddenly and subliminally feel the influence of him at times when I shoot photos myself. (Those are great moments btw.) I love the book. I hope you do as well.

My favorite photographer, and this book does him justice. Drawn from slides that were previously unseen, it’s a tight survey of Leiter’s color vision: rain-slick streets, fogged windows, reflections, and those muted reds and greens that feel painterly without ever turning sentimental. Production is excellent for the price. Color is faithful, skin tones and reds hold up, blacks are rich without crushing, printed on a semi-matte stock that keeps glare down so you can see the subtle gradations in snow, smoke, and shadows. Binding is solid and the plates are large enough to study details. Texts are brief and useful; the pictures lead. If you’re new to Leiter, start here.

Beautifull

Nice pictures. If you like saul leiter its a good one.

Putting aside how great the photos in this book are, I was not expecting the quality of the book itself to be so nice. The paper used throughout this book does justice to the photos contained inside.

Pure genius. Some really great images I hadn't seen before laid out on quality pages. More than images, a story. Nice book.

This book is very text-heavy with a lot of blank pages. It also includes a ton of work that is uninspired and not that interesting. If you want just one Saul Leiter book, this is not the one to get. My suggestion would be "Early Color" which is much more interesting and the quality of his work is on better display. Some of these photos look like mis-fires or accidents.

ARTICOLO PERFETTO TERMINE CONSEGNA RISPETTATO

Superbe livre sur les photos "vintages" en couleur de Saul Leiter

A simply lovely book on one of the great photographers of the 20th century. Lovely production and colour rendition, made with love and care by the Foundation that bears his name. 76 images dated during his rich period of 1948-66, this book compliments 'Early Colour' [Steidl] and is wonderful. Get it, you will not be disappointed. Erb, Parillo and Thames & Hudson did a great job.

Yo apenas conocí a este gran fotógrafo, su visión de la fotografía, me parece está incluida por los impresionistas, una corriente para mi la preferida muy a la par del cubismo, asi que resulto una increíble revelación conocerlo. Desafortunadamente en mi opinión, la impresión del libro no está a la altura de su trabajo.

Beautiful book with amazing Saul Leiter photographs, nostalgic, magical and beautifully printed. I love it! But still I think it's a real shame that they clearly could have made an even more amazing book, since the creators have A LOT of great material at hand, but only 76 of the thousands of slides are in this book. Come on! Worse, in the beginning of the book you have a great collection of original slides spread over two pages to see, most of them are in the book, but two of them are not, while those are just as good as all the others. Why aren't those even in the book? And further in the book there's an essay with a picture of a box filled with MANY of the original slides, while there are quite a few blank pages in the book that could have been filled as well. Surely there could have been WAY more of his great photography work in this book?! The essay about this book also doesn't say anything about the choices the creators made. Why didn't you make a more substantial book? At the very least you could have put in a symbolic 90 slides, since Saul Leiter died a week before his 90st birthday. (Also, a different size book could also have prevented the landscape format photographs being spread over two pages, but most of them are portrait format, so that's a minor point.) All in all, with a lot more photographs this could have been 5 stars WOW! But it's still a joy for the fans, so they get away with it!