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Follow in the footsteps of Leica Camera Ambassador Craig Semetko's 10 year trek across the globe to capture the spontaneity, humor, and juxtaposition of the human experience.
About the author
Leica Camera Ambassador Craig Semetko is an American photographer focusing on authentic human experience. Born and raised near Detroit, Michigan, and based in Los Angeles, Semetko became a professional comedy writer and performer after college and years later discovered photography as another means of storytelling. His comedic background has given him a highly developed sense of the absurd and ironic, resulting in a strong theme of humor throughout his work. In his foreword for Semetko’s book Unposed, Magnum Photos photographer Elliott Erwitt writes, “Good photographs are tough enough to shoot. Really funny ones are even harder. Good and funny photographs observed in nature not arranged or manipulated but simply observed in real time with amazing consistency, constitute a minor miracle now presented in Mr. Semetko’s book…In my book, he is the essential photographer. That is, the one who sees what others could not have seen.” Semetko’s photographs have appeared in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and numerous other publications worldwide.
Summary
In the book’s forward, iconic photographer Elliott Erwin writes, “Good photographs are tough enough to shoot. Really funny ones are even harder. Good and funny photographs observed in nature not arranged or manipulated but simply observed in real time with amazing consistency, constitute a minor miracle now presented in Mr. Semetko’s book…In my book, he is the essential photographer. That is, the one who sees what others could not have seen.”
Inspired by Cartier-Bresson, Robert Frank, and Elliott Erwitt, Craig Semetko is a collector of the spontaneous moment. With an uncanny knack for using Leica Cameras to capture the beautiful and unexpected that surrounds us all, Semetko offers a striking collection of imagery shot during 10 years of traveling around the world, from Edinburgh to Amsterdam, France to Los Angeles, Hanoi to Bangkok, and beyond.
This visual celebration records the first decade of the twenty-first century across all walks of life. Semetko documents the muted beauty of regular people simply living their lives, and captures the humor found in the offbeat and eccentric contrasts all around us. Unposed is a memorable exploration of an era shot by a skilled photographer, dubbed by Esquire magazine as “a noble torchbearer” of the Leica Camera legacy.
