His Mother bought him his first camera, a Detrola, and taught him how to use. In this documentary, directed by Tomas Leach, In No Great Hurry: 13 Lessons in Life With Saul Leiter (2012) follows Saul as he deals with the triple burden of clearing a houseful of memories, becoming world-famous in his eighties, and fending off a pesky filmmaker. Since the publication of his 2006 monograph Saul Leiter: Early Color, Leiter became known for his vibrant color street photographs.

Photographing for magazines including Esquire, Vogue, and Harper’s Bazaar, Leiter also frequently worked in and around his home city of New York. He was best known for his iconic fashion and art photography and remained relatively unsung until he was rediscovered by curators and critics in his early 80s. Leiter makes a reticent subject, reminiscing only briefly about his upbringing - from Pittsburgh originally, he disappointed his father, an Orthodox rabbi, when he pursued first painting, then fashion photography - and too little about his companion, Soames Bantry, who died in 2002 she believed in his talent, he recalls, often more than he did.In No Great Hurry: 13 Lessons in Life with Saul Leiter.Īmerican photographer and painter, Saul Leiter, was a pioneer of color photography. His best work seems both of the moment and timeless. Instead, between conversations, it floats some of his most ethereal, lustrous images, soft, layered scenes that glow with a watercolor’s warmth, sharp departures from the gritty cityscapes of his contemporaries. “In No Great Hurry” is not a rigorous examination of Mr. Half-jokingly, he says that if he doesn’t like it, he won’t allow its release. Leiter, seated in his cluttered East Village apartment, insists genially, questioning the need for a film. “My own achievements are rather minor,” Mr. Leiter’s almost pathological modesty, as Tomas Leach’s documentary, “In No Great Hurry: 13 Lessons in Life With Saul Leiter,” amply demonstrates.

While much of his most powerful work was made in the 1950s, it wasn’t truly rediscovered until nearly a half-century later. Now considered among the very best of the New York School street photographers, and a leading exponent in the artistic use of color film, Saul Leiter came to this acclaim rather late.

In no great hurry