I Can See it For You Wholesale

The photographs included in this review remind me in principle on the old Buddhist practice of meditating on dead bodies…This passage describes the effect well:

Richard’s photographs contain empty structures, and these structures appear to be mere shells. What is left standing has the the paint peeling off and the doors remain open as there is no real reason to close them anymore. The wood floor boards have become so rotten that they are collapsing under their own weight. The wall paper is yellowing, if there at all. Sometimes even the wall boards are gone, revealing the stucture’s skeletal timbers, like flesh that has come off the bone. There are decaying carpets and stair cases leading to nowhere.

Eugene Richards – The Blue Room « The PhotoBook

Note: This isn’t photographic, but I think it’s sufficiently relevant since some of the problems are problems familiar to photography.

I came across this today while browsing at Moe’s. I was immediately intrigued, because I love Terkel, and I’ve been reading more and more comics lately. I’m always in favor of combining things I like, even when it results in what can only be called questionable meal choices.

However, in this case, I think it’s a mistake. Images should never have been added to these words. Terkel’s peculiar magic is to present us with peoples’ stories in such a way that we feel part of this intimate discussion. When reading Terkel, it’s hard not to lean in closer to listen and not miss anything.

The artwork — while not necessarily objectionable in itself — breaks the spell. It prevents us from imaginatively reconstructing these slices of history, it intrudes, it breaks the dialogue by introducing a third party, a third wheel.

It rather reminds me of the reading The Maltese Falcon after first seeing the Bogart film. I love the movie, and the book, but the incredibly vivid black and white experience of the film totally prevented me from experiencing Hammett’s sometimes vivid color descriptions. And that was years later; I wasn’t contending with illustrations grafted onto the prose itself.

Oh, snap. Read the damn thing.

But at the end of the day, after we've gone to bed and have nothing better to do than think about the pictures we have taken, we will realise that the significant glances aren't so significant after all, that there is less dynamism in our pictures than there is in the bag of old socks that we photographed for our typological metaphor of our feelings of inadequacy and loss.

It doesn't really matter who our group of people are. If they are portrayed with one common, overriding feature that defines them above all else (and especially if the photographer shares that common feature), whether that feature is class, age, gender or income level, then we end up with a series of images that are no better than waxworks of stereotypes trying to look good for the camera.

Colin Pantall’s blog: How not to Photograph: All White People look Alike.