"Walker Evans"
Photofile series from Thames & Hudson
2007

Most photography books, the ones most likely to make it to the discerning eye's shelf, are large and expensive. Sometimes very large and very expensive. So it is nice to come across a smart book, well-done with excellent reproduction, that is priced right and well-made, such as "Walker Evans."

The Walker Evans and James Agee collaboration "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men" is very well-known, as is Walker's work for the Farm Security Administration and Fortune magazine. His unswerving photographs of Depression-era tenant farmers are stark and unnerving, as are his documents of their living conditions without the dwellers. Each is a portrait of life as stillness.

This book has that and more. A variety of beautiful images, people and things bring forth the past with power and grace: studies of buildings and their interiors, candid portraits taken without the subjects' knowledge, sign details and urbanscapes. Flawless compositions, distractions weeded from the photographic earth, seem to come with ease to Evans and are evident in all the work represented. Evans does not waste space with unnecessary elements or noise, which might divert the eye needlessly from the message.

This handsome book contains a well-coordinated representation of his work up to 1946. After that, five photographs represent the remaining years to his death in 1975. Even with the 29-year gap, the publication is a very good Evans primer. The swell price, listed at $15.95, is more than worth it for the bonanza of information in the introduction by Gilles Mora, an independent French curator and author of "Walker Evans: The Hungry Eye." Detailed and to the point, the introduction is worth double for anyone interested in the minutea of photographers.

Posted by Christopher Assaf at 4:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                    

"In the Shadow of Mountains"
by Steve McCurry

My first encounter with photographer Steve McCurry, unknown to me, came when I gazed at the cover of a 1985 National Geographic and it gazed back at me with green, knowledgeable eyes that followed me wherever I moved. It was the soon-to-be-famous "Afghan Girl" cover -- an iconic image showing both fear and beauty, betraying the unseen scars of war upon her homeland visible inside her glowing eyes and smudged face.

McCurry's latest book "In the Shadow of Mountains" is a monograph documenting his 27 years photographing Afghanistan. Within its beautiful cover splendid landscapes, slow street scenes and dignified portraits -- the piercing portraits -- artfully pop from the pages.

Whether described in terms of art or the jargon of photojournalism, the photographs betray an intuitive, perhaps harmonic, connection between McCurry and the ever-changing country.

His comfort with the people and the land is evident at every turn of the page, visible in the actions, and sometimes inertia, of daily life that fall in front of his lens. The tumultuous culture is on display, in various forms and permutations, altering as leadership changed and various forms of control exerted upon the people and the land .

The images are powerful and through simplicity gain more weight. McCurry is spare in his vision, even with a complicated composition. There may be a lot going on in a picture of an Afghan fighter relaxing, shoes neatly set nearby in a shattered landscape. But the red couch on which he reclines causes all the visual confusion, including the not-so-distant past and damaged present -- to quickly accrete into a vision of common peace in a hostile environment.

A similar photograph of a class taking place in a ruined building, set among more bomb-battered ruins, is jarring on its own. Add the unspoken fact people are trying to live and continue with life in these conditions the mind can spin. The chalkboard is similar to the red couch, a common element amid the wildly damaged landscape, causing familiarity to calm the setting.

Powerful. Exciting. Sad. Harrowing. These words can describe many of the images -- often at the same time. A truly superb tome worthy of placement on any bookshelf. It might be the best of his many books and is probably home to the best reproduction. A keeper.

Posted by Christopher Assaf at 4:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

"Born Standing Up," by Steve Martin

This is not a photography book. It is not even an art book, in the normal sense: It is a book about creativity. Steve Martin is a modern-day version of a Renaissance man. He made himself famous by playing the banjo with an arrow through his head and telling jokes without punchlines, singing about King Tut, acting in movies, creating screenplays and writing books.

"Born Standing Up" is an autobiography describing a man's ascent to the zenith of fame. Then, just past that height, says "Okay, what next?" and steps off the coaster to which he had been manacled. Not many people know when to say when and can recreate themselves successfully after being tagged a comedic genius. It concisely and exquisitely gives insight into his life from childhood (he was born in 1945) to the early '80s, the time when he left his white suit and stand-up act on the stage and stepped into a new public persona. Throughout this journey, the book describes the various changes and incarnations he went through, not unlike taking off the white suit and putting away the arrow, but not as severe.

Martin, in "Shopgirl," "The Pleasure of My Company" and his New Yorker scribes, has more than proven himself as a talent of übermagnitude. Using such sparse language, it is amazing he can describe a year of his life in a single phrase or paragraph. In this 204-page page-turner he covers more than half his life. So short, yet I feel I know him more intimately than others through their work and other means. Jackson Pollock, of whom I have read a 934-page biography, seen numerous artworks and read innumerable books, does not seem as close as Martin.

It's not as if Martin is open, flowing extrovert of a guy outside his wacky performance persona -- he is not. However, the book so deftly and precisely hones in on his growth, emotions and reasonings that he can describe the sprout of his constant battle with hypochondria in a sentence and I am completely informed regarding this subject.

But why I chose this book today can be summed up in a quote from page 80, the first part of which is from a postcard to a girlfriend.

"I have decided my act is going to go avant-garde. It is the only way to do what I want.

I'm not sure what I meant, but I wanted to use the lingo, and it was seductive to make these pronouncements. Through the years, I have learned there is no harm in charging oneself up with delusions between moments of valid inspiration." 

That last sentence is one to live by. 

Posted by Christopher Assaf at 3:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                    

My America by Christopher Morris

Photographer Christopher Morris traveled the world to the flaring hotspots of war and unrest, training his lens on in such locales as Panama during the American invasion, the Persian Gulf as America lead the coalition in the Gulf War, Croatia and Yugoslavia as civil war raged. Then the wanderlust within him subsided, and he set his sights on Washington and the White House. This first book came from Morris' work as a Time magazine contract photographer. He is part of the esteemed VII photo agency.

The book gives an impression of a cultlike atmosphere surrounding George W. Bush and taking hold in America -- the red, white and blue morphing into a symbol of "for us or against us" jingoism. Morris not only trained his lenses on the way in which Bush's handlers used to present him with little candidness but into the crowds, crew and handlers that preceded, took part or followed every move. To cross the distance from him and the president, he surveyed the terrain of people and places around him.

Awestruck rally crowds, eyes glazed in devotional attention and admiration, are shown as he turns away from the president and toward the masses gathered. Along the way he slowly strips away the identities, focusing instead on the details: jewelery, adorned cleavage, power suits with patriotic ties, and brightly pasted lips. Through these Americans, Morris delivers a before-unseen characterization of Bush that comes to the forefront.

Allegorically weaving in and out of the pages, like a fence through the Midwestern space of the "red" states that create perspective to the flattened plains or rolling fields, are images of the American flag. In every sense presented as a second idol, it drapes and adorns nearly anything. Clothing, walls, pins and posters. It is everywhere and part of the performance, whether an intentional prop or not.

The most interesting of the photos, to me, involve the Secret Service and military people used to guard and watch the president and locales around him. Stiffened sentinels, they fail to blend in with sapling trees or airport tarmacs. A Marine, in dress uniform and at tin-soldier attention, guards a mid-sized gas tank. At times the view of these visible unknowns is more scenic and involves the surroundings. At others he brings the viewer in tight. A slight suggestion of President Bush and the environment in the out-of-focus background, as a sweating, attentive agent keeps watch, behind a face encompassing most of the frame ignoring all else but the possible dangers in silent, diligent duty.

The power in these images comes not only from the content but the minimalistic style. Clean, clear, crisp and honest; little is exaggerated by lens or technical trick. In articles Morris states clearly his purpose of using long lenses to get a different look and make the selection more distinctive. It works within this beautifully published book that is interesting in its own right and as we journey into new presidential elections.             

Posted by Christopher Assaf at 4:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Fear This by Anthony Suau

Aperture is known for publishing provocative, sometimes counter-culture, books many publishers might not touch -- unless the included folio contains a lot of scantily clad people or outright nudity. Photographer Anthony Suau, well known for his 1980s work in Ethiopia, the war in Chechnya and the changing world of the former Soviet Union, tackles the home front in this nicely done softcover book. The work harks back to the stateside photographers documenting the tumultuous '60s and working the cultural divide caused by the civil rights movement and the war in Vietnam. Described as an anti-war document, the premise of the book is a visual questioning of the United States' actions leading to the invasion of Iraq, the early war and the eventual capture of Saddam Hussein.

Both sides are portrayed, yet there is a noticeable tilt to the left-leaning protesters, particularly the anti-George W. Bush factions. This is stated in some of the coverage the publication received. The work at the "pro-war" rallies is respectful enough, at times even-handed. The images from churches, where people gathered to pray for the troops or mourn the dead, are the most poignant in the book.

Suau decided to take the path which discovers the more polarized America than the one-sided coverage, often using slogans and images left unchallenged, he sees surrounding events. It is an interesting chronicle that will gain more historical perspective as time grows and emotions become less raw. A good, though not a necessary, addition to a photographer's library.

Posted by Christopher Assaf at 9:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

This is the first book review in what will be a new weekly offering on Thursdays. Photo books (and the possible art tome) old and new will be discussed. In the beginning, most of the titles will be extracted from my personal library.

Robert Frank: London/Wales by Robert Frank.
This is the early 1950s work of the renowned Robert Frank. The photos foreshadowed his 1955-56 Guggenheim Fellowship work that lead to his pioneering classic, The Americans (as mentioned in the photo book list). The photographs, still gritty as if technical issues were secondary, are windows into the evolving style of Frank. Frank subjectively documents the dichotomy between the earthen miners of Wales and the aristocratic bankers of London. The premise leads to an expressive exploration, Frank's attempt at a "Story," of two distinct strata in the socioeconomic soup of post-war England. As he follows his story, the images are not just depictions of people; environment is the continuous allegory flowing through. Each image becomes a stark revelation describing difference between the wealthy and poor. The haves and have-nots. Without outward acknowledgment, the people involved depend on each other in an unrecognized symbiotic relationship.

One photograph in particular has stayed with me since viewing the images in exhibition at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington. In it is a small coal car is filled with numerous miners. They are dirty and tired. Their faces, from the largest in front and descending in layers to those in back, show a weary grimness. But each, in the complicated composition, is different. The common aspect -- other than the work clothes, equipment and grime -- is the instilled sense of humanity.

This is a very good book and should be on the shelf of any person who is interested in artistic expression entwined in social documentary photojournalism.  

Posted by Christopher Assaf at 1:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)