Joel Meyerowitz was born in the Bronx, New York City. In 1959 he received a degree in painting and medical illustration from Ohio State University. After graduating, he became a street photographer, and in the early 1960s he was one of the first photographers who adopted color photography despite resistance to it in the photography community. In the early 1970's he taught the first color photography course at Cooper Union, and in 1976 he switched to large-format color photography. He is the author of 16 books including the seminal[citation needed] book, Cape Light. Meyerowitz often uses an 8x10 large format camera to produce photographs of places and people.
After the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center, Meyerowitz was the only photographer allowed unrestricted access to the crash site, and he published a book of his photographs called Aftermath: World Trade Center Archive.
