Louis Robinson von Beckhoff Through the Lens: A Mid-Twentieth Century Treasure Trove 
 By Renee Brenner 

At seventy-three years of age, Louis Robinson von Beckhoff has yet to study the art of photography formally; nonetheless, the large body of work he has amassed has received no shortage of accolades from the many viewers whose hearts his images have captured. A graduate of Philadelphia College of Textiles and Science (now Thomas Jefferson University) in June of 1968, Beckhoff’s first camera, a Zeiss Ikon Contessa rangefinder, was a high school graduation gift from his father. Before then, Beckhoff had no interest in photography. He has, however, always had an interest in people and chose to learn his craft hands on, with the streets of Philadelphia serving as his classroom. His first “lesson” as an artist was gleaned not from a professor but a local photo finisher who prepared Beckhoff’s contact sheets. And a valuable lesson it was. “With nothing more than a hand gesture,” says Beckhoff, “he (Maurice Abuhove) proceeded to simulate the horizontal camera position I’d typically assume and rotate his hand ninety degrees to the portrait position. And with that mime gesture, so simple, yet so fundamental, I got the message. That hand movement refined my technique to a marked degree.” Having never studied photography, Beckhoff’s pictures lack technical proficiency, he admits, “but mine have heart and I sometimes did get lucky technically,” he added. Indeed, what’s most noteworthy about his portraits, the majority dating from the 1960’s and ’70’s, is the depth of human emotion that speaks to the viewer. 
While in college, his shooting had no clear direction as his life lacked self-determination. As a dutiful son, he resolved to earn his degree to satisfy the expectations of his parents with a stint in the service likely to follow as the Vietnam war was still raging with no end in sight. And his first order of business was to make his parents proud and to that end he’d put his own yearnings on hold until both implicit parental dictates (college and military service) were met. What followed radically altered the course of his life. He learned soon after graduating that a chronic skin condition resistant to treatment exempted him from the draft and he was now free to follow his own dictates. 
In order to finance extensive global travel, Beckhoff spent the next year at home working before embarking on a transatlantic voyage on the Empress of Canada, a steamship headed for Liverpool, a stopping off point for him where he continued over land en route through various European countries to Israel. Once in Paris, he acquired a printed copy of “The Family of Man”, a compilation of photos of subjects from around the globe depicting the universal oneness we all share of the life cycle from birth to death. Although he had come across the book prior to that, at which time he gave it only a cursory look, upon closer examination with the book now in his possession, he found himself profoundly moved, propelling him to create with his own images and as the sole photographer, a Family of Man of sorts. In effect, he sought to record with his camera his own life’s encounters from the notable to the mundane. Children and the elderly would be the subjects to whom he felt a close connection and it is their faces that peer out of some of his most striking portraits. What gives his photographs “heart” is this seemingly tangible connection that viewers can perceive between the photographer and his subjects. 
Beckhoff’s preference for black and white photos becomes evident as one wades through his archive. When asked why black and white film was his preferred medium, Beckhoff explained, “I guess I’m just old school, a traditionalist. There’s a certain amount of play of light that registers on black and white film that gives it texture and meaning.” Chiaroscuro is a perfect illustration of this, he maintains. The richness it gives to black and white is much less prominent with color. Moreover, the vibrancy of the people in Beckhoff’s life is so palpable that color photographs, apart from detracting from the artistry, seemed unnecessary although he was, in a couple instances, called upon to use color after which he exposed a few rolls. And, as was the case with black and white film, he never used enhancement tools. He did, however, enlist the aid of a polarizer on the rare occasion color film would fail to replicate what the eye would normally see. 
Despite the many hours he spent daily with his camera, Beckhoff claimed he never once practiced shooting, nor would he spend much time setting up. “I seemed to have an ability to compose in the camera,” says Beckhoff. “My gaze would fix on something that would touch me in some way and I’d simply grab my camera and snap a picture”, the camera becoming an appendage of artistic expression. This lent a candid quality to his pictures that would often even take Beckhoff by surprise. Shooting with film, he could never be sure how a picture might turn out until he could get it processed. What would start as a portrait of a child might become a flash of captured childhood whimsy. One such example is his Pretzel Glasses image whereby, unbeknownst to him, the child took the pretzel she happened to be holding in her hand and raised it in front of her eyes just at the moment Beckhoff snapped the shutter and in so doing, Beckhoff happily immortalized moments familiar to us all. 
As a self-proclaimed portraitist, Beckhoff proved he knew a thing or two about capturing the quintessence of his subject in a single photograph. He believed it had less to do with the camera and more to do with the people themselves, although the Nikkor 105 medium telephoto lens, which being a portrait lens, (his lens of choice), coupled with his second camera, a Nikon Rig, is often much kinder to the subject. “You want to focus on the individual,” he said. “I knew many of my subjects... past lovers, family, friends” and Beckhoff used his portraits to illustrate the importance to him of the people in his world, emphasizing the thousand words worth of stories spoken assuredly by each picture. As we inch though this pandemic, masked and socially distant, Beckhoff’s portraits are a reminder of the potency and necessity of intimate human connection. 
Unfortunately, on an otherwise uneventful day in 1970, Beckhoff’s shooting, so deeply influenced and enriched by emotional bonding, came to a premature and abrupt end. 
Beckhoff’s father, who had presented his son with his first camera only five years earlier, witnessed, while at work in his shop, the theft of his son’s camera equipment from the seat of the latter’s unlocked, unattended vehicle parked across the street. He dropped what he had been doing, burst out the door in pursuit of the thief in the hopes of chasing him down on foot, but collapsed just as he caught up with the man, suffering a massive, fatal heart attack. A patrol officer, already at that location, apprehended the thief. “I virtually hung up my camera,” Beckhoff states. “I got my camera back but stopped shooting.” 
Beckhoff shoots only intermittently today, preferring his cell phone over a film camera. His images have been showcased at the Nexus Gallery in New York City and he has been invited (by Nikon) to exhibit in Tokyo, Japan, as well as galleries in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. More recently, Les Recontres d’Arles in Arles, France has offered to feature him at their annual photography festival.
Louis’ work, including a 1972 Rolling Stones concert at the Spectrum in Philadelphia, can be viewed on www.momentsintimepast.net.