Meyerowitz, Joel. Redheads by Joel Meyerowitz.

Rizzoli, 1991.  Wraps, VG+ with a few light indentations and a slight crimp in bottom right corner of front cover, otherwise like new. More than 50 portraits taken by Meyerowitz over a ten-year period at Cape Cod with his 8 x 10 view camera using color film, including a three-panel foldout of a beach with about three dozen people with red hair. Summary:

Redheads (1991) is a celebrated portrait study by Joel Meyerowitz, a pioneer of New Color Photography. Moving away from his famous "street photography" and the architectural light of Cape Light, Meyerowitz spent several summers on the beaches of Cape Cod capturing the unique physical and spirituous presence of redheaded people.

Core Content and Vision

The book is a collective portrait of a specific genetic trait, ranging from infants to the elderly. Meyerowitz was fascinated by the "luminous" quality of redheads and how their skin and hair reacted to the intense, clear light of the Atlantic coast.

• The "Ginger" Spectrum: The portraits showcase a vast range of individuals—babies with light strawberry curls, freckled teenagers, and adults with deep auburn hair.

• Psychological Depth: Meyerowitz sought to capture more than just a hair color; he aimed to document the "self-consciousness" and unique identity that often comes with being part of a striking minority.

Artistic Style

The series is defined by Meyerowitz's use of a large-format 8x10 view camera, which provides an extraordinary level of detail and a shallow depth of field.

• Natural Light: Most of the portraits were taken outdoors against simple backgrounds (the sea, dunes, or weathered shingles), allowing the natural sunlight to make the hair and skin appear almost incandescent.

• Directness: The subjects typically look directly into the lens, creating a sense of vulnerability and a "quiet, monumental presence."

Key Information

• Published: 1991 by Rizzoli.

• Format: Includes 65 color plates.

• Significance: This work marked a shift for Meyerowitz toward a more formal, "typological" style of portraiture. It remains one of the most famous photographic homages to the beauty and rarity of redheads.

Summary: Redheads is a vivid, appreciative study of human variety. It uses the specific palette of red hair and fair skin as a springboard to explore the effects of light, the power of the large-format lens, and the individuality of his subjects.

Joel Meyerowitz (born 1938) is a landmark American photographer and author celebrated as an early champion of color photography and a master of street and view-camera landscape photography. Born in the Bronx, New York, Meyerowitz studied painting and medical illustration at Ohio State University before working as an advertising art director; after watching Robert Frank shoot on location in 1962, he quit his job that same day to pursue photography full-time. Initially working on the streets of New York with a 35mm camera, Meyerowitz made a crucial early decision to shoot in color film alongside black-and-white, helping overcome institutional resistance to color fine art in the 1960s and 1970s alongside contemporaries William Eggleston and Stephen Shore. In the mid-1970s, he transitioned to an 8x10 large-format view camera, shifting his focus to luminosity, architectural detail, and atmospheric twilight—culminating in his seminal 1978 photobook Cape Light, which became one of the most widely sold art photography books in history. As the only photographer granted unrestricted access to Ground Zero immediately following September 11, 2001, he created Aftermath: World Trade Center Archive, an irreplaceable historic record of the recovery effort. Recipient of two Guggenheim Fellowships and the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize, Meyerowitz’s works are held in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Tate Modern.