photo-eye Book Reviews: The Present

The Present. By Paul Graham.
Published by Mack, 2012.

The Present
Reviewed by Colin Pantall
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The Present
Photographs by Paul Graham
Mack, 2012. Hardcover. 114 pp., 13 gatefolds, illustrated throughout, 9-3/4x12".

The first thing you notice about Paul Graham’s new book, The Present, is the cover. It’s silk; if the light shines one way it’s brown, it shines the other way and it’s golden. Two views in one.

Flip open the book, and the cover is replicated over 114 pages set out in a series of diptychs and triptychs, all shot on the streets of Manhattan. So you open the book and see a picture. Flip a page or open a gatefold and another image appears, remarkably similar to the first. So you look back at the first and start to notice the differences. Then you go on to the next picture and repeat the process. Looking at the book, turning the pages, opening the gatefolds builds up a rhythm. Turn, look, fold, look back and then repeat. Give the book to somebody else and most of the time you get the same rhythm. You can hear people looking at the book, taking in what Graham wants us to see.

And what he wants us to see is the antithesis of the decisive moment and the spectacle of the urban experience. Instead we get a very contemporary contingency, a street with moments so decisively indecisive that we don’t really know what we are looking at or looking for.

The Present, by Paul Graham. Published by Mack, 2012.

Everything is shot in middle-distance Graham-vision and together the pictures form an awkward shifting narrative that is photographic in intent and execution. Maybe this is a homage to Friedlander, Frank and Winogrand, but it’s with the proviso that Graham is doing something completely different. He is not so much showing us something as posing a question; what do we look at when we look at a photograph? So if we look at the first diptych, in one picture we see the Heineken truck in the foreground, flip the gatefold open and the truck has gone and we get the Manhattan skyline. In another pair we see an elderly couple walking across busy road, time moves on, the focus changes and we get a girl in a red and white vest standing on a manhole cover. In another diptych, a man with a cane walks across the middle of the frame. A few seconds later, two policemen stand in his place, one looking directly at the camera. A few steps change who and what we look at.

The Present, by Paul Graham. Published by Mack, 2012.

There are a fair few hostile glances in The Present, and a fair bit of blindness, disability, poverty and wealth. We can see what other people would do with the pictures, the characters that Winogrand or Evans or Gilden or diCorcia would pick out, deliberately or otherwise.

The Present, by Paul Graham. Published by Mack, 2012.

But Graham doesn’t isolate and iconicize his subjects, instead he remakes them in his own image. And that is what makes the book more than just an interesting footnote; the fact that the pictures don’t look like anyone else’s. Graham’s New York is a bit crappy for a start, an anti-nostalgic place that is run-down and anonymous. It looks pretty much like any other run down place. The people are the same. They’re not glamorous or striking or eccentric, but rather they’re harried, harassed and distant; no relationships were struck in the making of this book. These people could be anywhere; they stride purposefully along streets that hold no attractions to jobs that hold no attractions, their faces set into grimaces of urban stress. They walk along cold and uninviting sidewalks, past tired, functional shops and facades. There is a poverty of experience and environment here, an existence that appears deprived environmentally, emotionally and culturally. That’s the narrative; it’s a miserable life. Welcome to the Present.—COLIN PANTALL

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COLIN PANTALL is a UK-based writer, photographer and teacher - he is currently a visiting lecturer in Documentary Photography at the University of Wales. His work has been exhibited in London, Amsterdam, Manchester and Rome and his Sofa Portraits will be published as a handmade book early next year. Further thoughts of Colin Pantall can be found on his blog, which was listed as one of Wired.com’s favourites earlier this year.

A Closer Look -- Jeddah Diary

Jeddah Diary

Magnum photographer Olivia Arthur has shown a dedication to photographing the lives of women, particularly those who live on the cultural divide between the east and west. Invited to teach a photography course to a group of women in Saudi Arabia, Jeddah Diary is Arthur's exploration and attempt to photographically document the lives of the women she met there. She approached them earnestly, grateful for their friendship and curious about their lives, but photography in Saudi Arabia, particularly photography depicting women, is a complicated issue. It is a world that is perhaps not easy for a Westerner to understand, but Arthur's work gives us a glimpse into the intricacies of these women's lives.

from Jeddah Diary

The book is small, larger than a typical diary but similar in size. The opening text sets the scene, explaining the circumstances under which the photographs were made, making the difficultly of Arthur's project immediately evident; she recounts being yelled at for taking a photograph of a woman on the street. Photography is complicated for Saudi girls. The young women Arthur knew were interested in taking pictures, but photographs of women not wearing abayas must be hidden from men. What follows is a narrative of sorts, images and text arranged to tell a story, yet Arthur herself is the only stand out character. Her companions seem to swirl around her, taking her under their collective wing and introducing her to the most intimate facets of their lives, yet as individuals they are kept mostly hidden. It's hard to tell who we are looking at in the images -- some girls are named, but we see few faces, and in a small postscript Arthur makes it clear that in no way should one infer that the girls attending illegal parties are the same girls depicted elsewhere in the book. Her thank-yous show that many chose not to be named.

from Jeddah Diary

The combination of short blocks of text and images pulls the reader into and through the book, keeping the story moving while allowing for slower moments of intimacy and beauty. The restrictions Arthur encountered when photographing lead to some creative documentations to maintain her subjects' anonymity. The re-photographed portraits, using the reflection of the flash on the image surface to obscure the sitter's face, are among the most memorable of the book. The fine pores of the print reflecting small spheres of white, the women look to be wearing a halo of stars. I imagine that Arthur's archive of unusable shots is extensive and eye opening, but the images she did include are vastly communicative. The girls seem happy and full of laughter in each other's company, yet a sense of loneliness is pervasive. Sumptuous interiors feel impersonal, high walls and covered windows indicating that the lives lived within them are done so in secret. A pair of images depicts the boxes for an inflatable child's pool, children and father playing happily, mother blacked out completely with marker. Outside the home, a Saudi woman is a black shape, indistinguishable from any other. Dance party images show girls behaving wildly, faces always obscured by mops of dark hair. Any moment of rebellion is deeply relished.

from Jeddah Diary

I keep returning to the conceptual dissonance created by the very nature of Arthur's project, her attempt to photograph what cannot be shown. By necessity, her subjects live their lives in a bubble, cloistered from the world at large, which for Arthur led to further challenges, frustrations and confusion. The lives of Saudi girls is nearly an impossible photographic subject, and perhaps their world too is nearly impossible to know by someone not immediately in it. Even so, by approaching from oblique angles, Arthur has allowed us a peek in. The book is personal and memorable, and a notable accomplishment.

purchase a copy of Jeddah Diary

Book Signing and Talk for The Anasazi Project

Book Signing and Talk for The Anasazi Project
by Don Kirby and Joan Gentry

Where: photo-eye Bookstore, 370 Garcia Street, Santa Fe, NM 87501
When: Lecture and Book Signing, Friday, May 18, 2012 from 5-7 pm
Contact: Melanie McWhorter
Phone: 505.988.5152 x 112
Email: melanie@photoeye.com

photo-eye Bookstore is pleased to host a book signing and talk for Don Kirby and Joan Gentry’s The Anasazi Project on Friday, May 18, 2012 from 5 to 7 pm at photo-eye Bookstore, 370 Garcia Street, Santa Fe, NM. Photographers Don Kirby and Joan Gentry will give a short talk at 6:00 pm and will be available to sign books.

The Anasazi Project, published by Nazaraeli Press, is a joint exploration by photographers Kirby and Gentry of the remnants of the Anasazi peoples, who lived from 200BC to 1300AD before disappearing for unclear reasons. Kirby and Gentry have been exploring the Anasazi ruins together for over 20 years. The book contains an introduction and poems by Ann Weiler Walka and 60 duotone images illustrating the remains of the long past civilization's dwellings and rock art in the vast and beautiful Southwestern region.

from The Anasazi Project

“Sitting with Joan and Don’s photographs spread on my old library table, I marvel at the way they capture this perception. Much as an x-ray goes beyond the skin to capture bone structure, their visual language reveals a world beneath the surface world, a ground truth of energy gathered temporarily into form. In shades of silver and ebony, lightening flashes on cresting sandstone, flames leap, the deluge descends. The play of light and shadow, the tracings of water and wind offer metaphors for spirit, metamorphosis, migration.” — From the Introduction of The Anasazi Project by Ann Weiler Walka

Pre-order a signed copy here

photo-eye Book Reviews: Is This Place Great or What

Is This Place Great or What. Photographs by Brian Ulrich.
Published by Aperture, 2011.

Is This Place Great or What

Reviewed by George Slade

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Is This Place Great or What
Photographs by Brian Ulrich
Aperture, 2011. Hardcover. Illustrated throughout, 11-1/2x9-3/4".

Hello, Sisyphus. My name is Sisyphus. We are all Sisyphus here in this place.

Brian Ulrich's book is great, and a real downer. If you resisted President Bush's exhortations to shop America back to health after the events of 9-11-01, you may already be in line with the photographer. His Copia series, dating from 2001–2011, makes up the meat of this book. With mordant glee, the photographs insinuate that a decade of shopping has made us no better off; in fact, the rock we've been trying to shoulder up hill is flattening us.

How else to understand the tripartite sequence of this book, which follows Copia's chronological evolution? First, "Retail," individuals dazed by choice, mesmerized by the shopping mandate, caught in the thrall of messianic consumerism. Followed by "Thrift," the bubble breaking, consumer goods recycling en masse, reminding us of factories around the world ceaselessly producing junk that is briefly owned at full-price then resold at bargain stores. Finally, "Dark Stores," where the shop-'til-you-drop rallying cry came true on a big-box scale. Not much we can do for the global economy in those stripped-down temples.

Is This Place Great or What, by Brian Ulrich. Published by Aperture, 2011.

Is This Place Great or What, by Brian Ulrich. Published by Aperture, 2011.

The final few photographs offer ironic, hopeful notes. Vegetation is claiming the ruins. An exuberant "Yes" scrawls across a wall of glass, framing a cavernously emptied store; perhaps it's a cry of triumph, a non-branded voice in the dark. The toppled KFC bucket, proclaiming, in a contemporary paraphrase of P. B. Shelley's Ozymandias, "My name is Colonel Sanders, king of fried chicken/Look on my works, ye 'Mericans, and despair!"

Is This Place Great or What, by Brian Ulrich. Published by Aperture, 2011.

We do, Harland. Believe me, we do. But if you'll excuse us, we've got a boulder to move.—GEORGE SLADE

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GEORGE SLADE , a longtime contributor to photo-eye, is a photography writer, curator, historian and consultant based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He can be found on-line at http://rephotographica-slade.blogspot.com/

New on Publisher Direct

Ginza-Line / Tokyo Project by Marc Gouby and Chau Doc by Thinh Le

Ginza-Line / Tokyo Project by Marc Gouby is a beautiful book depicting the passengers of the Ginza-Line, Tokyo's first subway line. Here the viewer sees the diversity of Japanese society. Young and old, rich and poor unwind and rest on the commute from their business or personal lives. Often shown sleeping, these passengers are caught in an act that is both telling of their labors and openness to their surrounding passengers. The printing of this book is stunning and is accompanied by DVD of an original 16mm film.

Chau Doc by Thinh Le pays homage to the photographer's home in Mekong River Delta, Vietnam. Displaying striking landscapes alongside portraits, still lifes and chaotic street scenes, the images in this book piece together a vivid picture of both rural and urban Vietnamese life. Thinh Le offers a sentimental perspective as well as an otherworldly approach to his photographic practice, creating a narrative that urges the viewer to consider their own sense of home. See Thinh Le's work on the Photographer's Showcase here.

All Publisher Direct titles are available for order through the publisher via a special link within their listing.

See all the Publisher Direct books here.

Lauren Henkin -- Still Standing, Standing Still Limited Edition

Still Standing, Standing Still Limited Edition by Lauren Henkin
Features book inclosed in handmade wood box with print

Lauren Henkin's third handmade book, Still Standing, Standing Still documents Henkin's obsessive interest in a tree. "Slowly — around and around and around — I examined it in varying light and perspective. It was alone, with its scars unclothed, threatened by vines, but still standing," she says of her subject. The versatile book is a beautiful creation, and it is also available in remarkable limited edition. Exceptional care and thought went into the design of the book and limited edition, the extent of which is best shared in Henkin's own words. She was kind enough to tell us how this beautiful object came to be.

"The design of the book began by referencing how the images were created. The photographs in the book are of a single tree in Oregon. In photographing it, I knew I wanted it to read like I was moving around this object, and studying it in a way that we don’t take time to normally do—to tell multiple stories within the context of a larger one. So I knew, from the beginning, that I wanted the viewer to not only be able to experience it as a traditional photobook, but also able to display it, and move around it, as I did this tree, and experience the book itself more as a sculptural object—where the images from certain perspectives would blend together to create a new abstract set of visuals.

Still Standing, Standing Still Limited Edition box, book and print

"The question from there was how to construct the book in a way that would enable it to be flexible enough to accommodate both kinds of viewing experiences. I turned to an incredibly talented Portland bookbinder, Rory Sparks, who, after multiple meetings and dummies, helped me envision a way to design it utilizing a drum-leaf structure, a subtle magnetic closure so the book covers snapped together when the book was fully open, and eventually a wood box that would also function as a display for the book. Once we decided on these major structural and aesthetic decisions, the smaller ones needed to be resolved. It’s the resolution of the details that often elevate a project beyond what you see in the everyday. For this book, details that would need further consideration included how much of the full tree do I reveal, should any text be employed, material decisions, typography, and what would the box look like?

Prototype boxes and woodworker Chris Held -- photographs by Lauren Henkin

"For the design and construction of the box, I turned to a recommendation of Rory’s, Chris Held, who with a partner owns Von Tundra, a woodworking studio here in Portland. When we met, I explained to him that I did not want a traditional clamshell box. Again, turning to the images for guidance, I thought about this tree which stood alone, with its scars unclothed, threatened by vines, and damaged by lightning or other violent acts. I felt that the box itself needed to feel more organically realized, as if you could imagine walking around it, gathering pieces that had fallen or been broken off, and then constructing an enclosure from the remnants. Chris made a fantastic first prototype that was extremely close to the final design. After months of reworking the proportions and scale in relation to the book itself, which eventually culminated in one day spent together selecting wood and crafting one last prototype together, we completed the box that would house the book when closed. When the lid was lifted and rotated to rest on the base, a routed out pie shape was reveled allowing the book to stand when properly fully opened.

Interior and side of wooden box

"The other details quickly came together once the box was completed. After testing many papers, I selected Hahnemühle Museum Etching, a thick warm paper that presented a more natural feel to the images than a bright white paper would have. I decided against showing the full literal image of the tree from afar as I do in exhibition. I felt instinctually that holding something back and even differentiating the experience of viewing the book from the prints in exhibition made me want to investigate the images more frequently. I wanted a reference to it, a clue as to what you were looking at however. So, I took the photograph of the full tree, created line art from it, and in combination with Rory’s suggestion, letterpressed the image onto the cover. We settled on a very light ink, ghost-like almost, to give the suggestion of what was to come, but not give it all away." -- Lauren Henkin


Find more information on the limited edition here

photo-eye Book Reviews: A Girl and Her Room

A Girl and Her Room. By Rania Matar.
Published by Umbrage, 2012.

A Girl and Her Room

Reviewed by Karen Jenkins

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A Girl and Her Room
Photographs by Rania Matar. Essays by Susan Minot and Anne Tucker
Umbrage, 2012. Hardcover. 140 pp., color illustrations throughout, 9x12".

I like Rania Matar's new monograph A Girl and Her Room more and more each time I move through this bright series of portraits of teenage girls, at home in their most private and personalized spaces. The initial pull of these often chaotic images of girls and their stuff yields to a nuanced look at that space between child and adult, innocence and self-awareness. This series began close to home for Matar, who has photographed her own daughters from childhood to adolescence. Her observation of their shifting projections of self when in the company of other girls led her to start photographing their friends as well – other girls in their rooms. As this deeply personal project evolved, Matar's interest turned back to her own childhood in Lebanon and she began to also photograph teenage girls in the Middle East. There is no brash politicizing here; rather the images of the teens in Beruit and the West Bank are tied to their Western counterparts in a mash-up of cultural markings, from the hijab to Hannah Montana. They also foreground how a girl's room evolves over time – for the teens living in refugee camps those few treasured mementos of girlhood stand in higher relief against the backdrop of a borrowed space, devoid of the layers of a childhood spent somewhere else.

A Girl and Her Room, by Rania Matar. Published by Umbrage, 2012.

A Girl and Her Room, by Rania Matar. Published by Umbrage, 2012.

Essays by the novelist Susan Minot and curator Anne Tucker each describe the power of Matar's photographs to pull the adult woman back to her own adolescence, in a somewhat wistful journey of vivid detail. In these images I see a familiar echo of my own evolving curation of walls and shelves – layers of magazine pages, photographs and scribbled notes mounted in a daily projection of my best or most idealized self. Minot and Tucker also acknowledge the fundamental power of Matar's entry into these rooms that typically command adults to "keep out." The photographs are of course telling of how Matar saw these girls in their rooms, but how did they see her, this woman they let in…Flattering stranger? A (not their) mother figure? Role model? Or perhaps as part of that vast, nondescript group of "adults," Matar is able to exploit a certain invisibility that lends to these images a powerful sense of transparency and lack of overt mediation.

A Girl and Her Room, by Rania Matar. Published by Umbrage, 2012.

A Girl and Her Room, by Rania Matar. Published by Umbrage, 2012.

A few lines paired with each image give the girls' first names and home towns, but not ages; such figures seem far too concrete in the face of as all that Matar's photographs convey of the flux and uncertainty of this time. Yet most images are also paired with startlingly articulate statements on what it broadly is to be a teen, and specifically how it is to be Dima or Jess. Some statements point to the past, as if the girl's teenage years were far enough behind to afford her insight and nostalgia, however much of the photograph may say otherwise. I am not a mother, and do not know many teenagers, but did happen to find myself in a sea of them at a late night carnival while reviewing this book. And I am certain that Matar's insightful and generous depictions of the teenage girl's particular blend of bravado and vulnerability, enthusiasms and ennui colored my warm view of those I encountered and reminded me once again of the power of photography to shape my world view, even when I least expect it.—KAREN JENKINS

Read the photo-eye Blog interview with Rania Matar here

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KAREN JENKINS earned a Master's degree in Art History, specializing in the History of Photography from the University of Arizona. She has held curatorial positions at the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, AZ and the Demuth Museum in Lancaster, PA. Most recently she helped to debut a new arts project, Art in the Open Philadelphia, that challenges contemporary artists to reimagine the tradition of creating works of art en plein air for the 21st century.

photo-eye Book Reviews: Muses Volume I

Muses Volume I,  Andreas Laszlo Konrath, Brian Paul Lamotte,
 iO Tillett Wright, Thomas Giddings & Todd Jordan
Pau Wau Publications, 2012

Muses Volume I

Reviewed by Christopher Johnson

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Muses Volume I

Photographs by Andreas Laszlo Konrath, Brian Paul Lamotte, iO Tillett Wright, Thomas Giddings & Todd Jordan

Pau Wau Publications, 2012 Unpaged, five booklets, 8 pages each with fold out posters, 4¼x5½".

Pau Wau Publication’s anthology Muses Volume I is as unique as it is provocative. The book, if we choose to call it that, is an envelope compiling the works of five photographers, all reflecting on the idea of a 'muse.' Each photographer is given their own chapbook within the envelope; this is a great quality, the photographers seem to stand alone while being linked by common themes. The only downside is the fragility of the envelope itself, which is made of a simple thin brown paper. The operation of the book is diagramed on a handy little sheet that comes alongside the collection like the rule card in a deck of playing cards. The smaller books can be folded out into one large photograph for each photographer’s collection. Pau Wau Publications’ website also has a nice video displaying the unusual folding and unfolding of the smaller books. 

The photographers in this anthology are Brian Paul Lamotte, Thomas Giddings, Todd Jordan, iO Tillett Wright, and Andreas Laszlo Konrath. Each provides a work of portraiture and each, I think, aims at a sort of intimacy, which in the cases of Lamotte, Giddings, and Jordan veers towards the voyeuristic (a sense which is increased by the anthology’s presentation).

Muses Volume I, by Andreas Laszlo Konrath, Brian Paul Lamotte, iO Tillett Wright, Thomas Giddings & Todd Jordan. Pau Wau, 2012.

These latter three works are a clear favorite; though they all have their own quality and aesthetic they obviously belong together. Lamotte’s collection “Courtnay” is beautiful. These photographs seem to capture something of isolation and indelible character. The subject is set over and over again at distances and obscurations or in more contrasting isolated settings such as a bathtub outside. The environments in “Courtnay” are the most interesting and enmeshed; they are not, like the others, coincidental. “Courtnay” also, among these collections, makes the greatest use of both natural and staged lighting making the series stand out on its own. 

Muses Volume I, by Andreas Laszlo Konrath, Brian Paul Lamotte, iO Tillett Wright, Thomas Giddings & Todd Jordan. Pau Wau, 2012.

“Angharad” by Thomas Giddings is a quite different work from “Courtnay,” while still set in a strange voyeuristic tone. It, like Lamotte’s work, follows a woman but, this woman is quite different. These photographs are consistantly of someone, presumably Angharad, looking in on the lives and activities of others. We see her looking in on tennis players, searching through her bag and sifting through sand. These are portraits of longing. Theses photographs, more than the others, have a sense of detachment set between viewer and subject; it's as if they were taken on accident or snapped off-hand, secretly. This quality usefully amplifies the pervasive feeling of the anthology. 

Muses Volume I, by Andreas Laszlo Konrath, Brian Paul Lamotte, iO Tillett Wright, Thomas Giddings & Todd Jordan. Pau Wau, 2012.

Todd Jordan’s “Katherine” is, in my opinion, the most well put together. It both defrocks and obscures its subject. Although the modeling of “Katherine” is unquestionable there is still something contained herein that smacks of shyness or guilt. The subject’s face is continuously withheld from our view as we encounter her in revealing positions and situations. One feels a little uncomfortable turning the pages of this book, as “Katherine” is more and more exposed to us the feeling of intrusion mounts. The more these photographs are inspected the more details pop out, the age of the subject, scratches from fingernails and the shabbiness of her clothing, that greatly add to the collection's feeling of the voyeuristic, perhaps even the sadistic. This collection has a strong and lasting savor. It is quirky and beautiful; an alternate title for it might be “Reluctance and Resignation.” “Katherine” as subject is constantly placed at the center of the shot adding to these photographs a sort of continual intrusion and query. They remind of David Lynch’s work, work where the color of everyday life is heightened into a kind of acute madness. They are photographs for the dashboard of a car or the floor of a locker, meant, it would seem, to be smudged by unwashed fingertips. 

Muses Volume I, by Andreas Laszlo Konrath, Brian Paul Lamotte, iO Tillett Wright, Thomas Giddings & Todd Jordan. Pau Wau, 2012.

The final two collections in the Muses anthology are different. Although Wright and Konrath’s photographs share with the other three the intimate sense that portraiture conveys they are not as much in the voyeuristic vein. These collections are more traditional regardless of the idiosyncratic nature of their subjects and ought to be considered on their own rather than in the grouping of the previous three. Altogether, Muses Volume I is a great collection in a smart package. Those I have shared the book with take out each collection and handle them like something precious, cautiously unfolding and folding them back up again. I strongly recommend it to collectors of portraiture and unique book forms alike.

Muses Volume I is sold out but Volume II is expected in the fall. Click here to be notified when it arrives.
See more books from Pau Wau Publications here

Christopher Johnson is originally from Madison Wisconsin. He came to Santa Fe in 2002 and graduated from the College of Santa Fe majoring in English with an emphasis in poetry. Johnson is involved in the Santa Fe collective Meow Wolf, working with art fabrication, writing plays and teaching art to public school children with Meow Wolf's Chimera project.

photo-eye Gallery: Kelli Connell Double Life Exhibition

Head to Head -- Kelli Connell

photo-eye Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of photographs by Kelli Connell from her series Double Life. The exhibition runs through June 30th with an artist reception and book signing on June 1st. Work from this exhibit can be viewed online here.

Kelli Connell's series, Double Life, appears to document the evolving relationship between two women. By combining multiple negatives of the same model, Connell uses digital imaging techniques to create constructed realities. The model acts out various fictional scenarios, with the characters' body language and clothing changing in each image. The work represents Connell’s investigation of identity, sexuality, and gender roles, as they shape and are expressed within intimate relationships. Through her photographs she addresses complex issues about visual rhetoric and the self.

Steve Fitch's work at the New Mexico Museum of Art

And if you missed our last exhibit,  Steve Fitch's Highway Culture, a selection of the work is now on display at the New Mexico Museum of Art. As always Fitch's work from the exhibit can be viewed here.

Purchase a copy of Kelli Connell's book Double Life here
See books by Steve Fitch here

For more information on Kelli Connell or Steve Fitch's photographs, please contact Anne Kelly at photo-eye Gallery by email or by calling the gallery at (505) 988-5152 x202

photo-eye Book Reviews: Photographs Not Taken

Photographs Not Taken. Edited by Will Steacy.
Published by Daylight, 2012.

Photographs Not Taken

Reviewed by Adam Bell

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Will Steacy, Editor. Photographs Not Taken

Edited by Will Steacy.

Daylight, 2012. Softcover. 232 pp., 5-1/2x8".

Photographers live with a multitude of missed moments and photographs that escape the click of the shutter. Equal parts voyeur and hoarder, photographers stereotypically collect moments and images. Anything that escapes is cause for at least a little temporary sorrow if not haunting regret. While they don’t possess a monopoly on this ever-present sense of loss, photographers are trained to be vigilant for such moments and feel this loss all the more acutely. The distinct collection of short personal essays in Photographs Not Taken is not merely a catalog of lost photographs, but offers unique insight into the personal desires and hopes that drive photographers, and points to what photography can’t, shouldn’t and often fails to capture.

Edited by the photographer Will Steacy, the collection began as a blog, which seemed to stop abruptly several years ago. It is nice to see what might have been an ephemeral and idiosyncratic web project formally presented and preserved as a book. From Elinor Carucci to the tragically departed Tim Hetherington, Steacy has assembled an impressive collection of sixty-two contemporary photographers whose work and concerns vary a great deal. The essays all describe what Steacy calls the “mental negatives,” or images that only exist in photographer’s memory or mind – the ones that got away. Reading through the essays, one is immediately struck by the reoccurrence of various themes – the camera is out of reach or out of film; the dilemma of capturing or experiencing a moment; the ethical decisions of helping, bearing witness or simply refusing to raise the camera in difficult moments; and pictures that simply escaped because the photographer was caught in the moment.

Photographers take pictures to engage with, give coherence to and make visible the people, places and things in the world. Since the medium forces us to engage the world, the essays present a variety of different stories. Peter Van Agtmael’s presents a harrowing story of an U.S. Army Chaplain in Iraq callously pissing near the newly dug graves of a child. Sylvia Plachy and Joshua Lutz both speak about their paralyzed reaction to the events of 9/11. Christian Patterson recalls discovering a man who watched helplessly as his home burned to the ground. Breaking the rules of the book a little, Doug DuBois offers a touching, regret filled story of photographs he made of an aging, homeless, and once great, jazz musician he befriended as a young art student. Alone and in DuBois’ apartment, DuBois photographed the man shooting up heroin, and learned, a little too late, about when it is appropriate to take a picture and when you must put the camera aside. While many essays deal with difficult moments, other essays, like those by Aaron Schuman, Kelli Connell and Chris Jordan include more joyous moments that slipped away like making eye contact with a future wife, sunlight bathing a loved one or a unexpected sunburst at a picnic. Still others, like Amy Stein’s reflection on her husband’s reluctance to have his image taken, offer insight into how photographs, or their lack, shape memory and family history.

Despite its many, many limitations, photography’s uncanny ability to capture and distill reality and the world before us means we expect a great deal. I was there. It really happened. Look at this. While some the essay’s themes begin to feel familiar, what is most striking is what the collection reveals about our expectations and hopes for the medium, especially what it can and can’t do. Failure is constant – be it a failure to press the button in time, a failure of nerve or failure of light. It is photography’s persistent and stubborn refusal to capture certain moments, as well as our own human nature, that compels us to return and take more. We may not always take the photograph, but there are always more, even if they only exist in our minds.—ADAM BELL

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ADAM BELL is a photographer and writer based in Brooklyn, NY. He received his MFA from the School of Visual Arts, and his work has been exhibited and published internationally. He is the co-editor and co-author, with Charles H. Traub and Steve Heller, of The Education of a Photographer (Allworth Press, 2006). His writing has appeared in Foam Magazine, Lay Flat and Ahorn Magazine. He is currently on staff and faculty at the School of Visual Arts' MFA Photography, Video and Related Media Department. His website and blog are adambbell.com and adambellphoto.blogspot.com.