Steinmetz picked up his first camera around the age of six and ever since he has wanted to frame the world. Given to him as a birthday present from his parents, he quickly found the first object to seize on the roll of film; a floating circular cloud, perfectly shaped as a doughnut with a round hole in the middle. Although the physical photograph of the first snap was lost over time, his memories of taking the photo and the surroundings, are clear in his memory as if it were yesterday. Steinmetz remembers how he leaned against his parent’s car - feeling the metal on his skin - trying not to shake the camera. Softly spoken and a man of few words, he never gives much away, even when his personal recollections from each moment are undoubtedly in abundance. Listening to the artist talk about his works, it is evident that his artistic practice is synonymous with his tranquil personality.
From the mid-eighties, Steinmetz took on assignments to photograph children at summer camp and two of his first series reached the heart of Americans through themes everyone can identify with from childhood. Summer camp and ball games. Stretching over a decade, the series tell the same story. A story of sleeping bags and forest cabins; day activities and late-night campfires; of new friendships and bullies; and of having the first deep experiences away from their families. The familiarity binds the child in the photo to the personal memories of the adult viewer. We have all been there.
Having spent the early part of his life in the rust-belt cities of the north-east, Steinmetz shifted his focus in the nineties to the American South, a place he fell in love with for its warmth and chaos. In and around his new home in Athens, Georgia, he photographed a generation of teenagers, girls and boys living up to the Rock & Roll lifestyle the city had a reputation for. Here, his subjects were a slightly “older” generation. A fashionable girl is caught looking down in a moment of reflection, dressed in a short top, dark jacket as the long black hair catches the wind; and a young woman with curly hair and big earrings realising she is caught by the photographer’s lens the second she opens the door to her car, which causes her to look straight into the camera. Random journeys, always looking for the next frame.
Jittery Joe's, Athens, Georgia is such improvised shot, portraying a girl sitting in a local coffee shop in Athens. The image does not give away much other than her strong presence. A cleared table, an ashtray, a man in the blurred background, and visible arm of the person sitting next to her - and the posing question of who is the girl? Unlike Jittery Joe’s, the young man in
Bourbon Street, New Orleans seems too aware of Steinmetz’s lens. A handsome James Dean lookalike in an open white shirt, loose tie and casually leaning against a door frame while taking a puff on his cigarette. Even in a composition bordering cliché, Steinmetz leaves it to the viewer to make up if what is happening in front of the camera is a candid moment or a directed shot. Whatever the judgement, the artist’s photographs depict unexpected and eye-catching moments.
The evocative works by Steinmetz has landed him among small group of artists celebrated for their contribution to American documentary photography, making his works widely exhibited in solo and group exhibitions and museum shows. His monochromatic works can be found in the permanent collections of many of the world’s most prestigious museums, including The Metropolitan Museum, MoMA and Whitney Museum in New York, Contemporary Photography in Chicago and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. The extensive material from the American South, shot between 1994 and 2001, would later form the trilogy ‘South Central’ (2007), ‘South East’ (2008) and ‘Greater Atlanta’ (2009). A further sixteen books were published, including the exceptional series ‘Summer Camp’ and ‘The Players’, which earned him the Guggenheim Fellowship grant in 1994. The artist lives and works in Athens, Georgia.