Herman Leonard - The Last Of The Great Photographers

Just today I was reading my Twitter feed and saw where Michael Zhang (@petapixel) had tweeted about Herman Leonard's passing. Any photographer worth their salt has drooled over Leonard's iconic images of the great Jazz musicians taken back in the late 40's. I, like most practitioners of the art of photography was blown away by the famous shot of Dexter Gordon. There was just something special about it.

Once while in New Orleans, (pre-Katrina) I had the opportunity to see an original Dexter Gordon print by the master himself. Somehow we struck up a conversation with one of the employees of A Gallery Of Fine Photography about Leonard's work, and the guy mentioned how Herman would drop by the gallery once a week or so. I was like, I'm sure he does....

Well, unbeknownst to me, Herman Leonard did in fact reside in New Orleans at the time. I was fascinated to say the least!

I remember reading a couple of years later that the water did get to his home during Katrina and damaged thousands of original prints. Later it was learned that the negatives had been put in a vault before the storm and were safe and sound.

So the story goes, Herman Leonard evacuated to Los Angeles during Katrina and wound up never returning to New Orleans.


Herman Leornard's Website

The Man (self portrait)