Joanne and Judy, Philadelphia. Photo by Louis Von Beckhoff.

All too often the beauty of everyday life is dismissed as mundane. The daily rituals that one goes about, from commuting to work to grabbing coffee to picking up the newspaper, may seem trivial. To photographers such as Sarasota resident Louis Von Beckhoff, however, they are precious moments to be captured with a flash and frozen in time. Von Beckhoff, now 76-years-old, grew up in Philadelphia and in a short time amassed a catalog of film photography—primarily in black and white—that captures a bygone era of 1960s America.

Like the snap of a lens, Von Beckhoff’s time as a photographer was short. What started in the 1960s with the gift of a Zeiss Ikon Contessa Rangefinder from his father after graduating high school ended abruptly in 1970 when his camera equipment was stolen. His father, having witnessed the theft, chased after the thief and suffered a fatal heart attack.

In his brief photographic period, however, Von Beckhoff produced a body of work that has garnered critical acclaim for its raw, unfettered approach and has been shown in the galleries in New York, Tokyo, Mexico and France. Von Beckhoff, who never had formal training as a photographer, photographed everything that caught his eye, from the people on the streets of Philadelphia to intimate portraits of his friends and neighbors to landscapes of the Caribbean.

“I carried my camera like a guy carries a six-gun. I didn’t bracket, I didn’t take multiple exposures, I would just take a shot and move on,” says Von Beckhoff. “People have told me that I’m a marvel at capturing light, so I wasn’t really trying for anything other than if I saw a moment that moved me, I would take the shot.”

The spontaneity of Von Beckhoff produced shots such as Man with a snow cone, South Philadelphia. One day, Von Beckhoff came across an old dilapidated brownstone that he thought would make for a good photograph.

“I had to go out into the middle of the street in order to get the composition that I was looking for. While I was doing that, this guy was walking down the sidewalk with a snow cone and steps right into my photo when I snapped the shutter—I had no idea he was coming,” says Von Beckhoff. “That was just luck and to this day it’s one of my favorite photos.”

Louis Von Beckhoff’s work can be seen on his website and in his book, Moments in Time Past.

Joanne and Judy, Philadelphia. Photo by Louis Von Beckhoff.

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