Bending Light: The Moods of Color

Bending Light showcases photographer Eric Meola’s use of light and colour in his work throughout his five-decade career. Meola’s work is informed by writers, painters, musicians, and the desire to create visual metaphors with his imagery.

Eric Meola is considered a true innovator in color photography. Embark on visual journey around the world through Meola’s iconic photographs that showcase his captivating use of light and colour.

Multi-award-winning photographer Eric Meola is a master of using color and light in photography, creating vivid, evocative, and graphic images. From his famous “Coca Kid” and Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run” album cover to his Lifetime Achievement Award in 2023, Meola has had an extraordinary five-decade career.

Bending Light: The Moods of Color is a retrospective bursting with color. It features one hundred iconic photographs from Meola’s editorial, advertising and personal work, as well as his recent experiments with color abstracts. Meola also takes readers behind the lens to reveal the stories and anecdotes behind the creation of each image. Through this intimate and personal account of his creative process and self-expression, the photographer examines his use of color, its symbolism, and how it affects our moods.

For professional and aspiring photographers, and people who appreciate photography, art, and a colorful perspective of the world, this extraordinary collection of images, captured over more than fifty years, showcases why Meola is considered a true innovator in color photography.

Eric Meola studied photography at the Newhouse School of Journalism at Syracuse University and graduated with a B.A. in English Literature. Meola’s photographs are included in the archive of the American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP), the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., the International Center of Photography in New York, the George Eastman Museum, and Die Neue Sammlung (Design Museum) in Munich. His previous books include Last Places on Earth (Graphis, 2004), Born to Run: The Unseen Photos (Insight Editions, 2006), India: In Word & Image (revised edition; Rizzoli 2013), and Fierce Beauty: Storms of the Great Plains (Images Publishing, 2019). He has received numerous awards, including “Advertising Photographer of the Year” in 1986 from the American Society of Media Photographers, a “Power of the Image” George Eastman award in 2014, and, in 2023, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Professional Photographers of America, which noted that “Meola has distinguished himself in his career, which spans more than five decades, and has brought passion, service, and a vivid celebration of color to the photographic industry.” Eric and his wife, photographer Joanna McCarthy, live in Sagaponack, New York, on the south shore of Long Island. Carol McCusker received an M.A. and Ph.D. in Art History and the History of Photography from the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, under Professors Eugenia Parry and Geoff Batchen. Her undergraduate B.A. was from the Massachusetts College of Art, Boston. She was Curator at the Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, and is presently the Cofrin Endowed Curator of Photography for the Harn Museum of Art at the University of Florida, Gainesville. McCusker has curated over 65 exhibitions and won several awards, among them the Center for Creative Photography Ansel Adams Research Fellowship, Tucson; two Andy Warhol Foundation Awards; and two National Endowment for the Arts Awards. She writes regularly about photography and reviews portfolios internationally. And, like her friend and mentor, photo-historian Bill Jay (1940–2009), she advocates for visual literacy education — the how and why of making photographs.

Eric Meola studied photography at the Newhouse School of Journalism at Syracuse University and graduated with a B.A. in English Literature. Meola's photographs are included in the archive of the American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP), the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., the International Center of Photography in New York, the George Eastman Museum, and Die Neue Sammlung (Design Museum) in Munich. His previous books include Last Places on Earth (Graphis, 2004), Born to Run: The Unseen Photos (Insight Editions, 2006), India: In Word & Image (revised edition; Rizzoli 2013), and Fierce Beauty: Storms of the Great Plains (Images Publishing, 2019). He has received numerous awards, including “Advertising Photographer of the Year” in 1986 from the American Society of Media Photographers, a “Power of the Image” George Eastman award in 2014, and, in 2023, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Professional Photographers of America, which noted that “Meola has distinguished himself in his career, which spans more than five decades, and has brought passion, service, and a vivid celebration of color to the photographic industry.” Eric and his wife, photographer Joanna McCarthy, live in Sagaponack, New York, on the south shore of Long Island. Carol McCusker received an M.A. and Ph.D. in Art History and the History of Photography from the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, under Professors Eugenia Parry and Geoff Batchen. Her undergraduate B.A. was from the Massachusetts College of Art, Boston. She was Curator at the Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, and is presently the Cofrin Endowed Curator of Photography for the Harn Museum of Art at the University of Florida, Gainesville. McCusker has curated over 65 exhibitions and won several awards, among them the Center for Creative Photography Ansel Adams Research Fellowship, Tucson; two Andy Warhol Foundation Awards; and two National Endowment for the Arts Awards. She writes regularly about photography and reviews portfolios internationally. And, like her friend and mentor, photo-historian Bill Jay (1940–2009), she advocates for visual literacy education — the how and why of making photographs.