Mark Steinmetz: Notes of a Fleeting Summer
The Leica Store Gallery in San Francisco features Mark Steinmetz’s “Summertime // Love” series, a body of work developed in decades of observing everyday life in the American South and beyond.
Shot in medium-format black-and-white film, the photographs convey intimacy and a deep identification with the subject. While this series mostly highlights the romantic notes of a fleeting youthful summer, Steinmetz portrays people of all ages with closeness, resisting easy symbolism.
Mark Steinmetz’s practice reflects the influence of Garry Winogrand, with whom he worked in Los Angeles in the early 1980s, developing an observational style that resists iconic imagery. His focus is on immediacy and presence, privileging atmosphere and empathy over spectacle.
The exhibition “Summertime // Love” is on view at the Leica Store Gallery in San Francisco, until October 31st.
