For those of you which have read my post on ‘Why Photo Books Are Still Important’ you’ll know that I am a big fan of the physical hand held gallery that is a photo book. So I decided to create a list of a few of my current favourites.
Hunters
David Chancellor | www.davidchancellor.com
I used Chancellors work Hunters as the main body of reference for my essay as I feel like he, more than many others, has the incredible talents of capturing what can only be described as hideously gore ridden scenes as beautiful. It’s inner blurb adds the perfect context reading ‘Hunters explores the complex relationship between man and animal, the hunter and the hunted…’. The book depicts the graphic scenes of life and death in a respectfully artistic manner of photo journalism. Maybe it’s morbid fascination that’s getting the better of me but I believe this is a must have for anyones collection.
Beneath The Roses
Gregory Crewdson | www.gregorycrewdsonmovie.com
There’s nothing quite like what the creations that Crewdson creates. I’ve not come across a word or phase that describes this type of art work but I like to refer to it as perfectly mundane. The same way I would describe an Albert Camus novel or Gilbert Adair film the dreamers. There’s not really much going on, but somehow we have more emotion running through our body than if there was something going on. It’s a unique sensation. The work of Crewdson consist of cinema style scenes captured on incredibly large film plan cameras. I feel that the more I describe his work the less you’ll be inclined to look at it but be assured that the power of these images transient what we can communicate through language. Trust me that this book is worth it.
Pics or It Didn’t Happen
Edited by Arvida Byström & Molly Soda | Foreword by Chris Kraus
This one is a bit different from the previous two. Pics or it didn’t happen is a curation of over 250 images that were removed from Instagram. A simple premise for what has turned out to be an exceptional book. The first few pages consist of Instagram’s community guidelines, the following pages are of nudity, blood, and implied sexual behaviour. The aspect I fell that sells best about this book is that it is a curation of the expression of not one person, not a collective of artists, but rather many people from many different areas of the world. Not one of the people that are featured in this book knew of the concept of this creation while expressing themselves through image. It only became the art it is today after each individual created their own expressive art without knowing that another would be doing the same. And in a sense I guess we should be thinking instagram for having the community guidelines they do otherwise these images would probably have a lot less meaning.
Terryworld
Terry Richardson | www.terryrichardson.com
I feel like this one might be a bit controversial. Richardson’s photography is subject not scene. A celebrity on a white back drop has become the signature look of his work. His simple setup sounds boring and clean cut, and that couldn’t be further from the truth. Intimacy, passion, true undulated happiness. Richardson does something a lot of photographers struggle to do, he captures emotion. And he captures it in it’s rawest form. No image of his looks fake and polished but rather the complete opposite. It’s beyond genuine, the emotion captured in his body of work is tangible. Regardless if you like the photos of Terryworld or you hate them, we could all learn something from the artist that is Terry Richardson.