Harvey Lloyd (born November 26, 1926) is an American photographer and the leading figure in the "Breaking the Light" abstract expressionist photographic movement. He is well known for both his realistic and

abstract photography Abstract photography, sometimes called non-objective, experimental or conceptual photography, is a means of depicting a visual image that does not have an immediate association with the object world and that has been created through the use of p ...

. Lloyd trained under the legendary

Alexey Brodovitch Alexey Vyacheslavovich Brodovitch (also Brodovich; be, Аляксей Брадовіч, russian: Алексе́й Вячесла́вович Бродо́вич; 1898 – April 15, 1971) was a Russian-born American photographer, designer ...

and his photography spans a range of realistic styles from advertising to aerial photography to nature photography, and social photography; as well as, more recently, abstract styles. Lloyd uses his abstract work to inform his realistic work.

Early life

Lloyd was born in

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

, New York to Jewish

Ukrainian Ukrainian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Ukraine * Something relating to Ukrainians, an East Slavic people from Eastern Europe * Something relating to demographics of Ukraine in terms of demography and population of Ukraine * So ...

immigrants. He attended public schools in New York. He spent one year at

Cooper Union The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art (Cooper Union) is a private college at Cooper Square in New York City. Peter Cooper founded the institution in 1859 after learning about the government-supported École Polytechnique in ...

in New York studying graphic art and art direction.

Progression of Styles

Lloyd began his career as a

graphic design Graphic design is a profession, academic discipline and applied art whose activity consists in projecting visual communications intended to transmit specific messages to social groups, with specific objectives. Graphic design is an interdiscipli ...

er for the old American Weekly Hearst Sunday Magazine in New York. In the 1950s he created his own companies Graphic Arts Center and APA and Lloyd Inc. where he practiced traditional graphic design. In the 1960s, he attended Brodovitch's Design Laboratory in New York for graphic designers. He made slide shows for projection in the workshop using images and sound in an aleatory manner to discover serendipitous and unexpected combinations of audio-visual experiences. He then attended Brodovitch's Design Laboratory Workshops for photography. He became involved in photojournalism using a realistic traditional style of photography. Lloyd's interest in

photojournalism Photojournalism is journalism that uses images to tell a news story. It usually only refers to still images, but can also refer to video used in broadcast journalism. Photojournalism is distinguished from other close branches of photography (such ...

was accompanied by an interest in and practice of

. Initially, his approach was in the manner of traditional photographic abstraction—seeing patterns of peeling paint, tattered wall poster ads, patterns of every kind. Partly influenced by the blurred bullfighter images of his colleague

Ernst Haas Ernst Haas (March 2, 1921 – September 12, 1986) was an Austrian-American photojournalist and color photographer. During his 40-year career, Haas bridged the gap between photojournalism and the use of photography as a medium for expression an ...

, Loyd's traditional still

color Color (American English) or colour (British English) is the visual perceptual property deriving from the spectrum of light interacting with the photoreceptor cells of the eyes. Color categories and physical specifications of color are associ ...

and

black-and-white photography Monochrome photography is photography where each position on an image can record and show a different ''amount'' of light, but not a different hue. It includes all forms of black-and-white photography, which produce images containing shades of ...

transformed in 1995 with his first photography of the Halloween Eve parade up Sixth Avenue in Manhattan at dusk and night. He made blurred several-second exposures of the grotesquely masked witches, skeletons, etc., and fired his camera mounted flash during the long exposures. These images straddled between the real and the abstract blurred impressions. These post abstract expressionistic and post impressionist images "reinvented" the over two hundred year old "What you see is what you get" art of still film photography. He made tens of thousands of these images around Manhattan at night. "Breaking the Light" is the name for his post-abstract photographs. Each image is made during a single exposure in Lloyd's digital camera. The name "Breaking the Light" was coined in 2002 by Ivana Lovincic, photographer and current Director/Curator of Lloyd's Studio. In 2010 Loyd moved to

Santa Fe, New Mexico Santa Fe ( ; , Spanish for 'Holy Faith'; tew, Oghá P'o'oge, Tewa for 'white shell water place'; tiw, Hulp'ó'ona, label=Tiwa language, Northern Tiwa; nv, Yootó, Navajo for 'bead + water place') is the capital of the U.S. state of New Mexico. ...

. From Santa Fe he traveled approximately eighty thousand thousand miles to photograph National Parks and Pueblo ruins. He used his classic still film realistic technique. However his work was influenced by Breaking the Light. In addition, concepts from

quantum physics Quantum mechanics is a fundamental theory in physics that provides a description of the physical properties of nature at the scale of atoms and subatomic particles. It is the foundation of all quantum physics including quantum chemistry, qua ...

metaphysics Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...

and

Eastern philosophy Eastern philosophy or Asian philosophy includes the various philosophies that originated in East and South Asia, including Chinese philosophy, Japanese philosophy, Korean philosophy, and Vietnamese philosophy; which are dominant in East Asia, ...

influenced the realistic work.

Major Shows

Lloyd's work has been shown at * The

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

in New York City * The

Grand Palais The Grand Palais des Champs-Élysées ( en, Great Palace of the Elysian Fields), commonly known as the Grand Palais (English: Great Palace), is a historic site, exhibition hall and museum complex located at the Champs-Élysées in the 8th arro ...

Museum in Paris * The International Center of Photography in New York * The Museum of Northern Arizona * The

Venice Film Festival The Venice Film Festival or Venice International Film Festival ( it, Mostra Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica della Biennale di Venezia, "International Exhibition of Cinematographic Art of the Venice Biennale") is an annual film festival he ...

where he won the Mercurio d'Oro, and * The

Heard Museum The Heard Museum is a private, not-for-profit museum in Phoenix, Arizona, United States, dedicated to the advancement of American Indian art. It presents the stories of American Indian people from a first-person perspective, as well as exhibitio ...

in Phoenix with the installation of the multi-screen show Our Voices, Our Land ** "Harvey, I literally had goose bumps when viewing your (new Southwest images DVD) which I became recipient of only moments ago. It was nearly 30 years ago that you created the single most compelling multi-media production of any public attraction at the time... To think this show ran in the orientation theater for a good 15 years and it is still being shown in the Heard daily within their permanent exhibit! A remarkable run because of a remarkable artist and his creation that I am confident has impacted millions of lives."—Mike Fox, former director Heard MuseumEmail communication between Letitia Chambers and Harvey Lloyd, December 9, 2010.

Awards

*The Pacific Area Travel Association's gold medal for photography of China * The Art Director's Club Gold and silver medals for the

Royal Viking Line The Royal Viking Line was an upmarket cruise line that operated from 1972 until 1998. The company was the brain child of Warren Titus and had its headquarters at One Embarcadero Center in San Francisco. History The First Ships Each of the lin ...

advertising campaign * CINE Golden Eagle Award * Mercurio d'Oro from the Venice Industrial Film Festival for Portrait of a Railroad * Silver Anvil from the

Public Relations Society of America The Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) is a nonprofit trade association for public relations professionals. It was founded in 1947 by combining the American Council on Public Relations and the National Association of Public Relations Coun ...

for photography of volunteer older teachers * Grand Award—Photo Essays from the German magazine Bilderzeit

Professional Positions

* Lloyd is a former president of the American Society of Media Photographers * One of Canon USA's distinguished Explorers of Light * An exhibiting member of The

National Arts Club The National Arts Club is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and members club on Gramercy Park, Manhattan, New York City. It was founded in 1898 by Charles DeKay, an art and literary critic of the ''New York Times'' to "stimulate, foster, and promote public ...

in New York City

Bibliography

Picture Books

* * * * *

Trade Books

* * * *

Limited Edition Books

Lloyd also has a number of limited-edition, print-on-demand books of his photography. * BREAKING THE LIGHT: Post Abstract Expressionist Photographic Images. * BACH'S MIND: A Walk To The Stars * LAS VEGAS DECONSTRUCTED, images from one man exhibition in Las Vegas. * THE TAO OF CRANES: Sandhill Cranes Bosque del Apache Wildlife Reserve. * DEAD SEA MIRAGES: Hidden Rainbows. * MOONLIGHT SONATAS: The Moon In Hyperspace. * MOONLIGHT NOCTURNES: Homage To Whistler * YELLOWSTONE: The Devil's Volcano. * SENEGAL: The Remarkable Children of the Desert Nomads * LOG RHYTHMS: Aspen Tree Trunk Carvings * TOTEMS: Graffiti On The Road To The Summit * MONUMENT VALLEY, aerial & ground level images. * BACH: A Christmas Oratorio * LAS VEGAS DECONSTRUCTED * PARADISE LOST: Petrified Logs From The Emergence of Dinosaurs * HOLOCAUST: Yad Vashem Memorial Museum in Israel. * FOUR SEASONS OF HENRY MOORE (At NY Botanical Garden) * CONDOR: MACHU PICCHU, "A Life of Stone After So Many Lives." * ULTIMATE ROSES; The Beauty and Poetry of Macro Images of Roses. * A TIME FOR WAR & A TIME FOR PEACE: Israel Soon After 1967 War * THE QUANTUM GHOST: Reality & Unreality In the Art of Digital Photography. * DANCING WITH GHOSTS: Point Lobos Nature Reserve. * HALLOWEEN: NYC's GIGANTIC WITCHES & DEVILS PARADE. * SPIRIT HOUSE: Lloyd's Studio - Spirit Figures From Around the World * THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT: Illustrated With Cloudscapes * THE QUANTUM EYE: Macro Holograms &The New Art of Digital Photography. * SAKURA: Cherry Blossoms In A Japanese Garden with Poems from Kyoto. * BRYCE CANYON: Nature's Barber Poles and Totems

External links

Harvey Lloyd Website, expired

Harvey Lloyd Photoblogs

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Loyd, Harvey Living people Artists from Santa Fe, New Mexico Photographers from New York City 1926 births