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Highlights
- The life and times of the New Journalism exponent behind The Bikeriders and Conversations with the DeadThis picaresque memoir dives into the heart of the revolutionary 20th century through the lens of one of its most crucial witnesses, American photographer and filmmaker Danny Lyon.
- Author(s): Danny Lyon
- 224 Pages
- Photography, Individual Photographers
Description
Book Synopsis
The life and times of the New Journalism exponent behind The Bikeriders and Conversations with the Dead
This picaresque memoir dives into the heart of the revolutionary 20th century through the lens of one of its most crucial witnesses, American photographer and filmmaker Danny Lyon. His story begins in the Czar-ruled Russia of 1905, when Lyon's uncle Abram fled to Brooklyn after his involvement in the murder of a policeman during a pogrom. A few decades later, amid the upheaval of World War II, Lyon was born.
Presaged by this beginning, Lyon's life has overseen adventures and tragedies of world-historical proportions. This Is My Life I'm Talking About recounts them in generous detail, from Lyon's friendship with the great American civil rights hero John Lewis--who is best known for his chairmanship of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee--to his involvement with the Chicago Outlaws Motorcycle Club, upon which his famous photojournalist work The Bikeriders (1968) was based. Throughout, Lyon writes with tremendous feeling and humor, and his text is accompanied by a selection of unpublished and unseen photographs.
An early exponent of New Journalism, Danny Lyon (born 1942) is one of the most influential documentary photographers of the last six decades. While still a student at the University of Chicago, he was jailed in the South and became the first staff photographer of the SNCC. He went on to publish the seminal photobooks The Bikeriders and Conversations with the Dead (1971), an interrogation of the Texas prison system. Later in life, he pivoted to filmmaking, partnering with Robert Frank.
Review Quotes
Idiosyncrasies color Mr. Lyon's unfiltered account of a life spent photographing this revolutionary period of our nation's history.--Angelina Torre "The Wall Street Journal"
Lyon was an important figure in the rise of New Journalism, which combined the immersive methods of investigative reporting with the author's distinct perspective and voice. His autobiography shows this in action. Rather than aspiring to detached objectivity, Danny Lyon truly lived what he shot, wielding the camera as both a shield and a weapon.--Julia Curl "Hyperallergic"
A picaresque memoir that reveals his natural gifts for storytelling. Like his photographs, Lyon's prose is electric, poetic, and filled with explosive details, bringing readers into the middle of the action before roaring off to the next episode. The stories move with the same intense pace with which he worked, crisscrossing the country on his red Triumph motorcycle during the 1960s.--Miss Rosen "AnOther"