As We Are

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.”