Photo Notes :: October 2022
All the News That's Fit to Print
I’ve had great success writing about photography, reviewing photo books, and getting the opportunity to interview talented, thought-provoking, and colorful people. These aspects have sustained my desire to write, and share, and promote people who put their photographic work out into the world. F-Stop Magazine has been my home for a long time - everyone should check it out. See our exhibitions, read the pieces by me, or Hans, or Walter - and witness the sheer force of Dedication from F-Stop’s Editor, Christy Karpinski, who has published issue after issue for years.
Writing posts which feel like signposts rather than chapters in a novel are just not my speed. It’s not a good reason to write. Not for me; that’s not why I do it.
Not for the Likes. Not for the Followers.
And writers sure as hell don’t do it for the money. (It’s a long, tough row to hoe)
I’ve had slow times and hectic busy times. I’ve had bouts with feeling low and not wanting to write or make images at all. So, often times the best way forward, is through. Here are a few of the pieces I’ve written and shared recently which I hope others find interesting, inspiring, and bridge the gap of the collective lives we live. Enjoy
Pretty Much by Sandy Carson
Sandy Carson’s photo book, Pretty Much, is a humorous look at where he found himself in 2020 his adopted hometown of Austin, Texas. Carson’s photographic viewpoint is a sympathetic and curious exploration of his surroundings. Carson’s presented or ‘crafted scenarios’ from the ‘heady’ days of 2020 prompt the viewer to confront issues which loomed large and were pervasive that year. Weighty issues begat weighty questions. Those topics and images are modestly tempered when seen comfortably from the latter half of 2021 and beyond. Tragedy + time = comedy. Pretty much.
Sleeping Beauty by Lydia Panas
Sleeping Beauty succeeds in the way that I always hope — Panas’ work has challenged me to think. The work is masterfully created, so I am left to give my full attention to the grand questions of what she has done here. How did she choose to express herself and how is it the same or different from what I’ve already experienced? I’ve thought about this book for weeks — and I’m a better person for it.
Mountaintops to Moonscapes / Oil Sands / Tar Sands by Alan Gignoux
Alan Gignoux documents the ruinous impact of oil extraction and mountaintop removal mining. His career as a photojournalist working on the environment and the effects of displacement on communities around the world is reflected in these books. Alan’s images create a visual language of lines, marks, structures, and hulking equipment — a codex which brings the viewer no closer to understanding the ‘business language’ of what is going on beneath the surface. Once a reader gets to the middle spread of Mountaintops to Moonscapes, each page and each layer of the book past that middle-point is covered and buried by the preceding and following pages and images; a clever metaphor of scenes and homes and businesses and churches and towns being covered by an alien-looking crust… impacting the economic activity and social aspects of the community where people’s lives are changed forever.
Puberty by Laurence Philomène
Puberty is a self-portrait project by Laurence Philomène which looks at the intimate and vital process of self-care as a non-binary transgender person undergoing hormonal replacement therapy (HRT). Shot over a period of two years, it combines surreal colors and mundane environments to document daily moments and slow, subtle physical changes occurring during Philomène’s transition. Looking at HRT as a process without a fixed end goal, Puberty sets out to challenge viewers to consider identity beyond binaries via self-portraits and as depicted ‘through the bodies of others’.
It seems like everything you learn growing up — whether from other kids, or books you read, or from your parents — everything feels like you’re doing it wrong. Viewers online are bombarded with ideal images of how everything is going just fine — especially in the current age of constant connection, selfie-culture and over sharing. But the truth is, lots of things are not okay, and that’s okay. Authors like Judy Blume or John Green, whose novels and stories throw back the proverbial covers of youth to reveal all the bedbugs, provide the counter-argument to thinking ‘everyone else’s world is fine’: Life is messy, and that’s life. The struggles are real, but it will all be okay.