Fred Herzog: Black and White
Black and White offers a fascinating look at the lesser-known early work of Fred Herzog, one of the great pioneers of color street photography. Published in 2022 by Hatje Cantz, the book brings together 68 black-and-white photographs made primarily during the 1950s and early 1960s, revealing a side of Herzog’s practice that is rarely seen alongside his celebrated color work.
Born in Germany and settled in Vancouver in 1953, Herzog began photographing the city while working as a medical photographer. These early images already contain many of the qualities that would later define his photography: an extraordinary sensitivity to light, an instinct for composition and a fascination with the overlooked details of everyday urban life.
Without the vivid colors of his famous Kodachrome photographs, Herzog’s attention turns towards shadows, textures, gestures and the subtle relationships between people and their surroundings. Shop windows, streets, architecture, anonymous passers-by and fleeting encounters become quietly poetic images of a Vancouver that has largely disappeared.
The photographs are documentary without being conventional. Herzog does not simply record the city; he observes it with the curiosity of a flâneur, finding unexpected beauty and emotional resonance in ordinary moments. There is a sense of nostalgia, but never sentimentality. Instead, the images capture the atmosphere of a particular time and place with remarkable intimacy.
Black and White is especially valuable because it reveals that Herzog’s mastery was never dependent on color alone. The visual intelligence, patience and sensitivity that would later make his color photographs so distinctive were already fully developed in these early works.
Published as a 128-page hardcover with 68 photographs and a text by Geoff Dyer, the book is an essential complement to Herzog’s better-known color publications and an important addition to the history of street and urban photography.