Since 2021, Leica Camera AG has been awarding the Leica Picture of the Year to outstanding Leica photographers who have been inducted into the Leica Hall of Fame. To share part of this success with all Leica enthusiasts, a Leica Picture of the Year is being selected once again this year. It is exclusively available in Leica Galleries worldwide. This offers all friends of Leica the opportunity to build up a unique collection of excellent Leica photographs with the limited editions. Joel Meyerowitz’s Leica Picture of the Year now follows in the footsteps of works by Ralph Gibson, Thomas Hoepker, Elliott Erwitt and Herlinde Koelbl.

The selected motif belongs to the photographer’s early period. Born in 1938, Meyerowitz decided spontaneously in the early 1960s to quit his job as art director at a New York ad agency and go on to discover the world as a photographer. A Leica M2 became his preferred tool for honing his visual instincts day after day and swiftly identifying perfect moments within complex everyday scenes. He found the restless energy he sought in the everyday magic of New York City’s bustling streets and above all in the regular parades taking place. The Leica Picture of the Year was captured in 1963 on the fringes of the Puerto Rican Day Parade – an enduring celebration that remains a fixture in New York City’s annual parade calendar. Since 1959, it has been an expression of self-confidence and celebration of Puerto Rico’s rich culture and history, particularly for the millions of people of Puerto Rican descent living across the United States. Meyerowitz spontaneously turned the lens of his Leica on a group of four women gathered in a shop doorway on Fifth Avenue. To this day, the image says a great deal about photographic perception and immediacy, as well as fashion, the zeitgeist and the atmosphere in New York City back then.