Just Loomis: As We Are

From blank-faced strippers to awkwardly poised nymphets, photographer Just Loomis’s solitary characters brim with acute longing and displacement. A lifelong friend and former assistant to Helmut Newton, Loomis is a veteran of the fashion world who has worked with a slew of models and celebrities (Madonna, Carla Bruni and Lily Cole among them) for publications including The New York Times and Harper’s Bazaar. But, under the radar, Loomis has also been building up a portfolio of his own, touchingly personal work since the mid-70s, exploring his fascination with western American life through intimate snapshots of motel rooms, call-center girls and a host of unusual but always unguarded characters that he has encountered on his travels and assignments. (He cites Diane Arbus and Lewis Hine as heroes). This month these images are published for the first time in the new book As We Are (available now from Hatje Cantz). Loomis embarked on the project after June Newton (widow of Helmut) saw his personal work and insisted he exhibit the images at the Helmut Newton Foundation in Berlin, as part of 2009’s Three Boys from Pasadena group show. “That was the beginning of a real connection between me and June,” says Loomis. “I’d always wanted to do a book, but when June started to react and become interested, that’s when the idea really came to me.”

Read our full interview with Just Loomis here >>