Bending Light (The Moods of Color)

"Eric Meola is to color photography what Ansel Adams was to black & white photography: a master of his craft. Eric's new retrospective book, Bending Light: The Moods of Color, is a must-have for every fan of photography and art." - Pete Souza, official White House photographer for Presidents Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama

"BENDING LIGHT is a photographer's remarkable, fifty year career-defining work. In short stories that collectively take the photographs to another level, Meola weaves a narrative that extends the book's appeal to a wide audience, providing further insight into his vision of light and color." - Sean Callahan, founding editor American Photographer

• A visual journey around the world of one hundred iconic photographs taken by celebrated and multi-award-winning photographer, Eric Meola\

• An intimate and personal account of Eric Meola's creative process and self expression, including the telling of the stories behind the creation of each photograph

• A showcase of the expert use of visual language, informed by writers, painters, musicians, and a desire to create visual metaphor with imagery

• The Professional Photographers of America noted that "Eric Meola champions photography as a visual language capable of great emotion. He's a photographer with a love affair for color, light, and artistic freedom."

Bending Light: The Moods of Color showcases photographer Eric Meola’s use of light and color throughout his career of editorial, advertising, and personal work. In one hundred iconic photographs, including recent experiments with color abstracts, and in dozens of stories and anecdotes, he examines his five-decade journey using color in photography, its symbolism, and how it affects our moods. Meola’s work is informed by writers, painters, musicians, and the desire to create visual metaphors with his imagery — whether intimate portraits, unique landscapes, or color-saturated abstracts, his use of geometry within the frame of the photograph creates a tension that is instantly recognizable. In awarding him its Lifetime Achievement Award for 2023, the Professional Photographers of America noted that “Eric Meola champions photography as a visual language capable of great emotion. He’s a photographer with a love affair for color, light, and artistic freedom.” As Meola says, “Light and color are my subject as much as the subject itself. It’s the confluence of color with light — the movement within the color — that’s important to me. Although the end image is a still photograph, the story of its creation, the how and why it came to be, is part of every photographer’s psyche. Telling the stories behind the photographs is my way to revisit the creative process, both as a means of introspection as well as expression. Photography has always been a way for me to create what I feel, and feel as I create.” Bending Light: The Moods of Color takes us on a visual journey around the world as Meola tells the story behind the creation of each image, giving insight into the thought process behind creating photographs. A photographer from Rangefinder magazine referred to him as one of “a handful of color photographers who are true innovators.”