Louis Mendes

Louis Mendes (born June 15, 1940) is an American photographer based in New York City who is known for his signature dapper style, press camera, and street portraits. In 2026 he was named a recipient of the Gordon Parks Foundation Legacy Acquisition Fund.

Early life Mendes was born in 1940 and raised in Jamaica, Queens, the only son in a family of ten children. Later that year he photographed the Million Man March in Washington, D.C., and in October 1997 the Million Woman March in Philadelphia, where he and an assistant exposed roughly 700 sheets of film over the course of the day.

Style and method Mendes typically works with a Speed Graphic press camera fitted with modified film backs that accept various film types, including instant Polaroid film. Mendes attended a 1980s lecture by Gordon Parks at Hunter College, where he made a double-exposure portrait of Parks on stage; the two later met again at the Leica Gallery.

Publications Publications by Mendes Monumental. Raymond Ortiz, 2010. One of a Kind. Raymond Ortiz, 2010. The Magic Within. Raymond Ortiz, 2010. Mestrado Fotografo. Raymond Ortiz, 2010.

Publications with mentions of Mendes One Hundred Jobs: A Panorama of Work in the American City. The New Press, 2000. By Ron Howell, with photographs by Ozier Muhammad. Coney Island. W. W. Norton & Company, 1998. By Harvey Stein.