Seeing Beauty With Saul Leiter

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Tony Cenicola thought he was leaving behind the world of being a photo assistant to start his own studio. He had been helping a photographer move into a lower Fifth Avenue studio duplex in 1985 when its owner was struck by something: Mr. Cenicola could pack delicate cameras and gear. Soon, Mr. Cenicola got a call from that photographer to be his assistant. He spent the next 10 years working with Saul Leiter, an important figure in the New York School. Mr. Leiter died late Tuesday night in New York City. Mr. Cenicola, who is now a staff photographer at The New York Times, recalled his time assisting â€" and learning from â€" Mr. Leiter. His conversation with David Gonzalez has been edited into a first-person narrative.

Saul had this studio at 156 Fifth Avenue, a stunning duplex that opened up to a rooftop with a view to the north and the Empire State Building. It was quite a vista, and it was at a time when the whole photo business was simpler and you could have a place like that. Saul was moving out, and I was helping this photographer move in.

The space was beautiful, but I had no idea who Saul was. I knew he was an older photographer, somewhat eccentric. But that’s how I met Saul and Soames, his lady friend; they were a pair for 44 years. They were impressed by the fact that I could pack things without breaking them. Not too long later, he called me and asked if I wanted to help him pack his studio and take stuff to his apartment on 10th Street.

In Saul’s career, this was the low point: he was down to one or two clients. There was a younger crowd of fashion photographers coming in and Saul was getting difficult to work with. He had his own way and didn’t like to follow layouts. He wanted to take his picture. It was occasional jobs that I would assist him on, I would set up lights, meter and bracket for him. I was in charge of fixing things, too, in his apartment. He was totally inept at anything other than art.

Tony Cenicola/The New York Times Saul Leiter in 2010.

For the most part, I would go to his apartment and sit and have coffee and be in conversation with him and Soames. He was this character who would talk about art and things. He had a way about him that was, I guess, professorial. He was someone you knew you had to spend as much time with as possible. The two of them together, actually. They would go back and forth. They’d talk about art and artists and art movements and what makes different artists great.

Of course, going to his apartment was really eye-opening: it was filled with art books, his work and Soames’s work. You would sit and have coffee with them, and he’d have a portfolio on his lap of paintings he had done the night before because he couldn’t sleep. He’d ask, “What do you think of this?” He had a way of talking that was self-deprecating and humorous.

He liked working in his neighborhood. We were doing a fashion story for The New York Times Magazine, and he wanted to shoot on the Lower East Side using graffiti tags in the background. He did all these shots, but when the article came out in the magazine, all the graffiti had been retouched out of the pictures! That really infuriated him. He’d have some complaints, but he wasn’t surprised.

Another time he was asked by Comme des Garçons to do a catalog of dress shirts, and they gave him carte blanche to go anywhere in the world. He decided he wanted to work on the blocks around his house. That’s what he liked.

Tony Cenicola/The New York Times Mr. Leiter, circa 1987.

We were on 9th Street working when, all of a sudden, this guy comes walking by. Saul picked up his camera and started chasing this guy in a funny way. He’s shooting pictures and chasing him across the street, having this cat-and-mouse thing. He comes back and says in my ear in a low, conspiratorial voice, “Do you know who that was?”

I did not.

“That was Robert Frank.”

I was a kid then. I’m 58 now. Life got in the way and I saw him less and less. You don’t go to visit Saul for five minutes. You have to go there for the evening. It got harder and harder to visit him, I had moved upstate, had kids and a full-time job. But I’d still make excuses to come down and see him, but not often enough.

I did see him this week.

Saul had a love of beauty. He didn’t like art that was harsh. He had a way of seeing beauty in everything. I’m always seeing like Saul. I look around and I can take a Saul picture. What I’ve come to realize when I take a picture like that, it’s a Saul picture. I can take a beautiful picture in the style of Saul. What I have to strive to do is take a picture as good as Saul that’s mine.

I’m still working on that.

Tony Cenicola/The New York Times In the style of Saul Leiter. New York. Nov. 26.

A film by Tomas Leach, “In No Great Hurry: 13 Lessons in Life With Saul Leiter,” had its premiere in New York at the DOC NYC film festival in Chelsea on Nov. 16. Upcoming screenings include one at the Bath Film Festival in England, on Dec. 4, at the Brotfabrik Kino in Berlin, Dec. 5 through 11 and at the Miami Street Photography Festival on Dec. 6 and 7.

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