Helen Levitt

This Sunday, I had the chance and special honor to meet -- if only briefly -- Helen Levitt. I visited the 94-year old photographer with a bouquet of flowers on behalf of the Sprengel Museum Hannover (Germany) to congratulate her. Levitt was awarded this year's "Spectrum" Prize of the Foundation Lower Saxony in collaboration with the Sprengel Museum. On display at the latter is a comprehensive retrospective of Levitt's work (through May 25th).

Levitt had discovered her interest in photography early, and was mentored during her first steps by Henri Cartier-Bresson, and Walker Evans in particular. She started to document the streets of New York and has created through her straight but intimate approach some of the most iconic images of this city and its people ever since. She now almost stands as a synonym for the genre of "street photography".