Photographie

9-10 / 2026

Photos from the Chocolate Box

SHADOWS OF THE PAST by Andrea Spaeht

“World War II was over. Reconstruction was underway in many nations, and photographer John Baer was right in the thick of it. For nearly a decade he documented public life, creating a remarkable legacy that in in boxes, waiting to be discovered…”

Shadows of the Past

“Where there is much light, there is deep shadow.” This statement by Goethe (1782-1832), from his play Gotz von Berlichingen, has found its way into philosophical and psychological discourse. The converse is equally true: where there is shadow, there is light. During the COVID pandemic, with their freedom restricted, many people engaged with new, fulfilling pursuits—among them Andrew Baer and his wife, Megan Moynihan. In 1994, following his father’s death, Andrew discovered three plastic bins filled with negatives and rolls of film, in the damp basement of the family home in Rhode Island, tucked away between fishing rods and a table saw. For a long time, these items accompanied him on his life’s journey, largely unnoticed. Only the occasional image from the collection—such as the workers on Fifth Avenue in New York City (featured in the opening spread)—adorned the walls of his various homes. It was not until 2021, during the pandemic, that he and Moynihan took a detailed look at the contents.

Thus began their adventure into the world of John Baer between 1945 and 1954. “I began to see my father in a new light,” Andrew writes in the forthcoming photo book—the result of the monumental task of processing thousands of negatives using a flatbed scanner. Modern technology met the analog era— a time when the photojournalist had once made do with a makeshift darkroom in the bathroom, yet meticulously captured what he discovered on his travels with his wife, Louise Fuoss—scenes on the streets of Germany, New York, and France, all recorded with the Leica camera he had acquired from a German prisoner of war. Cardboard film canisters surfaced from a box of chocolates, bearing labels such as Munich, Heidelberg, Lumiere, and Montpellier. And pasted into a notebook were glassine envelopes containing sketches and detailed instructions for darkroom work—notes on where to use dodging techniques or which exposure times would yield the perfect photograph.

“As I looked at a print showing four women sitting on a bench in Bryant Park, I thought about his patience and his ability to capture a moment that was at once ordinary and intimate. I couldn’t help but reflect on the long journey John had made from the small town where he grew up.” In the book, Andrew Baer shares an anecdote: John was a respected student at Penn State; following the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, he wrote an article for the campus newspaper titled “Our Contribution to the War,” advocating that students continue their studies to prepare for future service to the country. When John was finally drafted into the army in 1944, Louise gave him a photograph with the inscription: “This is a picture of your future wife. Take care of it, because I know our children will want to see it. This smile is because I love you. —Fuoss.” His spirited partner, Louise Fuoss, graces the cover of the photo book John Baer: The Extraordinary Ordinary / A Memoir in Photographs 1945-1954.