Just Loomis Bücher

Just Loomis' career began in Milan, in 1983 when Carla Sozzani gave him his first fashion story for Vogue Sposa. It was while in Italy that Loomis (* 1957 in Reno, Nevada) discovered the backstage. "It was like discovering a world of secret beauty . . . " After working in Italy Loomis moved to New York and became a regular contributor to Harper's Bazaar and the New York Times Magazine. In 1998 he decided to devote his time to fine art career and documentary portraiture. This resulted in the monograph, As We Are published in 2010 which was nominated for the prestigious Deutscher Fotobuchpreis. Loomis returned to the backstage in 2000: "I wanted to capture the models working, not posing...they were so beautiful in motion." This book Just Loomis-Backstage is shot entirely on film and is a result of years of work in Paris, Milan, New York and Los Angeles.

Just Loomis' first photographs were made in the mid-1970s, recording the railway lines and the casinos of his birthplace in Reno, Nevada; they tell of the highs and lows of everyday life in the American West. A former assistant and friend of Helmut Newton's, Loomis (born 1957) worked in the 1980s as a fashion photographer for magazines such as Harper's Bazaar and The New York Times Magazine . Turning to portraiture and documentary photography in 1990, Loomis began to make portrait photographs, in both black and white and in color, that show a raw and affectionate view of everyday life in America: a waitress behind a counter in a Hollywood diner, a young couple exuding the bliss of early romance, or children caught in moments of play. From his earliest work through to this latest collection, the photographer's first monograph, Loomis' method has been to insist on the value and beauty of what lies immediately to hand, and to locate the moments that illuminate that fact for the viewer. As June Newton states, "He understands these people, as he comes from the same place. These pictures are without artifice of any kind... I call them a perfect example of Americana today."