Renowned photographer Joel Meyerowitz delivered the Flinn Foundation Centennial Lecture Thursday night on the Tempe campus, giving the ASU community a “Look Behind the Lens.”

Meyerowitz, who spoke about his near 50-year career in a dynamic, unpredictable field, was invited by Barrett, the Honors College as the school’s 19th annual Centennial Lecturer.

In an interview, Meyerowitz said he hoped his lecture would make photography less of a mystery to those unfamiliar with the art.

Meyerowitz said today’s widespread access to professional camera equipment has made photography more accessible but less careful.

“[People] don’t make photographs that are necessarily as smart as they are,” he said. “Most people are much more interesting and complex than mere pointing.”

During a walk around campus Wednesday, Meyerowitz shared what he called the key to intelligent photography with a class of 12 honors students.
Photographers can realize new potential by moving effectively and observantly through space, he said.

“We’re navigating our way through traffic, through people, around pillars and palm trees,” he said as the group walked around campus. “We can use that same capacity for sight in a much more engaged and playful way.

“There’s a capability for making a richer, more relationship-oriented photograph.”

Meyerowitz reached his career landmark when he became the only photographer granted access by the city of New York to photograph Ground Zero following 9/11.

Battling the city for access to the rubble turned him from a quiet, private citizen to an active social participant, he said, affecting his life more than his career.

“It was a big turning point for me as a person,” Meyerowitz said. “I stood up against the bureaucracy of New York City and pushed it aside. I said no, we need a record, and I’m going to make that record, and no one is going to stop me.”

Now, Meyerowitz said he is focusing more on socially conscious photography, as opposed to his technique-oriented work preceding 9/11. He recently finished a project documenting endangered wildlife in New York.

Meyerowitz said his next project will examine renewable energy sources. Meyerowitz is currently looking for funding for the project, which will bring together a team of young photographers to document America’s energy potential in photographs.

“We talk about it all the time as a nation, and we don’t really do anything about sustainable energy,” he said.

This new passion for socially conscious photography can be traced to his documentation of 9/11, Meyerowitz said.

“[The experience] made me want to be more socially useful as an artist,” he said. “It’s the motivation for me now.”

Photography senior Jacque Donaldson said she found Meyerowitz’s acute focus on social awareness particularly moving.

Donaldson’s own work discusses themes of war and childhood fantasy, she said, drawing inspiration from work like Meyerowitz’s.

“Lectures like these are important,” Donaldson said. “What I get from here, I can apply to what I’m learning and doing in my work. You get new ideas and you get new concepts.”

Reach the reporter at jessica.testa@asu.edu