The Reading Warehouse

Nevada-born photographer Just Loomis (born 1957) began his career in 1983 in Milan, when editor and gallerist Carla Sozzani gave him his first fashion story for Vogue Sposa. It was during his time in Italy that Loomis discovered the world of the "backstage." "I was in Rome photographing the Valentino show. I wandered backstage ... no one went backstage then. It was like discovering a world of secret beauty." This book, the result of years of work in Paris, Milan, New York and Los Angeles, is his portrait of this hidden world. "I wanted to to capture the models working, not posing," he writes; "they were so beautiful in motion."

After working in Italy Loomis moved to New York and became a regular contributor to Harper's Bazaar and New York Times magazine. In 1998 he decided to pursue documentary portraiture. This resulted in the 2010 Hatje Cantz book As We Are, edited by June Newton (in part as an acknowledgment of the years Loomis spent assisting her husband Helmut Newton). Loomis returned to the backstage in 2000, bringing his love of the documentary portrait to the world of fashion.