The Big Picture

2014

The first comprehensive book from Arthur Elgort featuring iconic photographs across his five-decade career. Arthur rose to fame working for such distinguished magazines as American, French and Italian Vogue, Interview, GQ, Life and Rolling Stone and shooting advertising campaigns for fashion labels including Chanel, Valentino and Yves Saint Laurent.

With his lens focused on fashion and his personal interests like ballet and jazz, this book includes breathtaking photographs from the ethereal Kate Moss riding an elephant in Nepal and the late Stella Tennant diving into a pool fully clothed to young ballerinas at the Vaganova School of Ballet putting on their pointe shoes and jazz legend Dexter Gordon on the saxophone.

CURRENTLY IN PRINT

Available from Steidl

Ballet

2020

Before he was a world-renowned photographer behind some of the most prominent fashion photographs to date, Arthur Elgort spent his youth photographing ballet. His ability to capture movement despite no formal dance training was indisputable and kindled a career-spanning passion for photographing ballet. This book features photographs he captured in rehearsals, behind the scene and onstage, as granted permission for New York Ballet co-founder George Balanchine, in both black and white and color film that literally dances across the pages.

CURRENTLY IN PRINT

Available from Steidl

Jazz

2018

Arthur Elgort was nine years old when he discovered jazz. His early introduction to jazz translated into a life-long obsession with both the music and the culture. This book features a collection of photographs honoring the artistry of the genre from the common jazz musicians performing on the street corners to some of the most iconic names across the history of jazz. He also honors the culture with photographs of jazz fans on the rugged streets of Harlem in the most breathtaking ensembles that required no fashion editors.

Currently in Print

Available from Damiani

Camera Crazy

2004

Arthur Elgort is, in the most literal sense, camera crazy. He is never without a camera or two and can be frequently spotted across New York City with cameras both around his neck and in his bag. Arthur translated his obsession with cameras into this book exploring the prevalence of cameras in contemporary life that features hundreds of photographs of camera-toting people from endless rows of paparazzi, children, supermodels, strangers and even his collection of self-portraits.

Out of Print

Camera Ready: How to shoot your kids

1997

Advice from Arthur Elgort on how-to photograph kids with notes on the optimal film speed, lighting and technique and hundreds of photographs of his three kids. This book also features anecdotes about his personal practices around his home to photograph his kids, including how he would keep bowls of cameras in different locations and snap photographs when his kids were somewhat still while seated at the kitchen table.

OUT OF PRINT

TEXAS TENOR

1992

A master of the snapshot aesthetic, Arthur Elgort is one of the most famous camera-toting people in the world. In Camera Crazy, he takes pictures of other camera-toting people, from children to supermodels, from strangers back to himself. There's Cindy Crawford and Richard Gere, cameras at the ready. There's a crowd of paparazzi. It's an endless and ever-growing sea of lenses, this camera crazy culture of ours. Sometimes it seems as if we can't even see unless it's through a lens! And who better to capture the contemporary zeitgeist than the maestro of the framed moment: Arthur Elgort.

OUT OF PRINT

COLORADO COWBOY

1994

Where have all the cowboys gone? Look no further than Bruce Ford, a 39-year-old (at the time of this 1994 documentary), four-time national rodeo champion and the subject of filmmaker Arthur Elgort's sepia-toned homage to the surviving spirit of the American West. Elgort closely follows the dignified and amiable Ford for the duration of a rodeo-circuit season, traveling with him as he rides bucking broncos in one town after another, earning money and points toward eligibility in the all-important national finals. Though it would be easy to look at Ford's classically weathered, rugged face all day, Elgort also takes us into the inner sanctum of his subject's sturdy, supportive family, which keeps faith by often accompanying him on the road. Much of Elgort's action footage in the rodeo ring is extraordinarily handsome, and he is admirably alert to the breathless drama of Ford's dangerous occupation. Whatever one might think of the cowboy life, one can't help but root for this guy and feel grateful to Elgort for keeping a corner of America's historic identity alive. For those of us whose days revolve around cities or the nowheresville of cyberspace, the continuing story of Bruce Ford's pathway across the land is heartening. --Tom Keogh

OUT OF PRINT