Joel Meyerowitz Photography

New York, NY, USA

Joel Meyerowitz preserves history with the EverSmart Supreme II scanner.

"Only a scanner with the technology of the EverSmart can carry the amount of information--from negative to printed image--to convey the integrity of the original."

Joel Meyerowitz, Photographer

EverSmart quality enables Meyerowitz to convey impact of 9/11

Joel Meyerowitz is an award-winning photographer whose work has appeared in over 150 exhibitions in museums and galleries around the world. A native New Yorker, Meyerowitz began photographing in 1962. He is a street photographer in the tradition of Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Frank, though unlike his forerunners, Meyerowitz works exclusively in color.

Within a few days of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, Meyerowitz began to create an archive of the destruction and recovery at Ground Zero and the immediate neighborhood. The only photographer granted unimpeded access to the site as of September 23, 2001, Meyerowitz undertook this formidable task using a 4 x 5-inch-view camera, as well as other equipment in the studio, among which was an EverSmart Supreme II scanner.

Meyerowitz chose the EverSmart Supreme II scanner for its reliability and quality. He needed to archive 8,500 historical images and wanted--among his other digital tools--a scanner that he could rely on for accuracy. "I wanted the images to be as exquisitely rendered as possible," says Meyerowitz. "I work with a large-format camera to capture the authenticity of images. I wanted the scans to be of equivalent quality." Meyerowitz continues: "Issues of truth are important.”

"I've published 15 books, and almost all of them have been scanned on Scitex scanners," says Meyerowitz. "I've always liked their rendering, subtlety, depth, luminosity, and clarity." So, in 2003, when Meyerowitz required a scanner to create the digital originals for his forthcoming book on the aftermath of 9/11, he looked to an EverSmart scanner. "Only a scanner with the technology of EverSmart can carry the amount of information--from negative to printed image--to convey the integrity of the original," says Meyerowitz.

Meyerowitz also chose the EverSmart Supreme II for its diverse and efficient workflow. "I shoot with large-format color film and 35-mm slides, so I need an instrument that can handle both," says Meyerowitz. The Kodak Oil Mounting Station has also proven to be an asset, which Meyerowitz maintains "saves an hour of spotting when working with an image that is 10 feet across."

Getting started on the EverSmart Supreme II was straightforward. "The oXYgen software is quite intuitive. We got the hang of it fast," says Meyerowitz. He adds, "The software is nurturing--it didn't defeat us, but helped us make better and better scans."

The 9/11 Photographic Archive will become part of the permanent collection of the Museum of the City of New York, and the archives of the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. During the creation of the archive, the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) of the U.S. State Department approached Meyerowitz and the Museum of the City of New York to produce an exhibition of the photographs. Entitled "After September 11: Images from Ground Zero," the exhibition began its worldwide tour in early 2002. For the special U.S. version of this exhibition, Meyerowitz created 28 of the images--some as large as 10 feet--using his EverSmart Supreme II scanner. He describes his audiences' reaction to these powerful images: "People see a kind of reality when viewing this material. The scan is an invisible participant in the creation of the illusion of reality. If the scan was of lesser quality, people wouldn't feel as drawn as they are to the images. People would immediately recognize that the images are an illusion, so they wouldn't have the same impact."