Steve LeHuray

Steve LeHuray passed away suddenly last week, apparently from a heart attack. In addition to his love of a very 1950's-traditional style of street photography, Steve was also a media entrepreneur and founder of the magazine ICOM.

Steve was very much an old-school style of flaneur photographer, one who saw his shooting as a means to approach everyday theatre and through it try to glimpse something of the essence of humanity. It's no surprise he was very involved in the Leicaphile collective "Family of Man 2" project of a couple of years ago. I didn't always buy his theories or his photos, but he certainly did, they meant a lot to him and gave his effort a sense of personal meaning. Sometimes I think that might be the best one can hope for.

Let me rip him off here, from this posting, date 19 Sept 2001:

...with the upcoming WTO/IMF protests a couple weeks away in Washington I posted for my wk36 PAW this protest picture, "Convert the War Machine":

http://www.streetphoto.net/photo_of_the_week/wk36.jpg

Then four days later came the World Trade Center/Pentagon attack. I felt devastated and helpless. So I needed some time to think.

I spent time thinking (maybe I do that to much) and in particular about my photography, my kind of photography which by now most people who have been following my PAW realize that what I mostly do is Street Photography. And I asked myself, why do I do Street Photography for many years now? I knew what the answer would be. Because of the confusing state, to me, of world affairs, I know that I take pictures of complete strangers because somewhere in those pictures there is an answer, if only for me, as to why we all are what we are.

Working through those particualr mysteries engaged him to the end — as witnessed by Steve's final PAW Photo.

So long, sl.