Danny Lyon: This Is My Life I’m Talking About

The life and times of the New Journalism exponent behind The Bikeriders and Conversations with the Dead

This picaresque memoir dives into the heart of the revolutionary 20th century through the lens of one of its most crucial witnesses, American photographer and filmmaker Danny Lyon. His story begins in the Czar-ruled Russia of 1905, when Lyon’s uncle Abram fled to Brooklyn after his involvement in the murder of a policeman during a pogrom. A few decades later, amid the upheaval of World War II, Lyon was born.
Presaged by this beginning, Lyon’s life has overseen adventures and tragedies of world-historical proportions. This Is My Life I’m Talking About recounts them in generous detail, from Lyon’s friendship with the great American civil rights hero John Lewis―who is best known for his chairmanship of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee―to his involvement with the Chicago Outlaws Motorcycle Club, upon which his famous photojournalist work The Bikeriders (1968) was based. Throughout, Lyon writes with tremendous feeling and humor, and his text is accompanied by a selection of unpublished and unseen photographs.
An early exponent of New Journalism, Danny Lyon (born 1942) is one of the most influential documentary photographers of the last six decades. While still a student at the University of Chicago, he was jailed in the South and became the first staff photographer of the SNCC. He went on to publish the seminal photobooks The Bikeriders and Conversations with the Dead (1971), an interrogation of the Texas prison system. Later in life, he pivoted to filmmaking, partnering with Robert Frank.

Danny Lyon (né en 1942 à New York) est l'un des photographes documentaires les plus influents de sa génération. Alors qu'il était encore étudiant à l'université de Chicago, il a été emprisonné dans le Sud et est devenu le premier photographe du Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Ses photographies ont constitué l'essentiel du livre The Movement. De retour à Chicago en 1965, il rejoint le Chicago Outlaw Motorcycle Club. Les deux années qu'il passe au sein du club donnent lieu à la publication d'un livre qui fera date, The Bikeriders. En 1967, Lyon obtient l'accès au système pénitentiaire du Texas et produit la série Conversations with the Dead. À sa sortie de prison, Lyon retourne à New York, où il rencontre le photographe et cinéaste Robert Frank. Ensemble, ils créent la société Sweeney Films.