A book-length essay about photography's unique ability to ease the ache of human mortality.
Drawing on the writings of Wallace Stevens, Marilynne Robinson and other poets, artists, musicians and thinkers, Brooklyn-based photographer Tim Carpenter (born 1968) argues passionately--in one main essay and a series of lively digressions--that photography is unique among the arts in its capacity for easing the fundamental ache of our mortality; for managing the breach that separates the self from all that is not the self; for enriching one's sense of freedom and personhood; and for cultivating meaning in an otherwise meaningless reality.
Printed in three colors that reflect the various "voices" of the book, the text design follows several channels of thought, inviting various approaches to reading. A unique and instructive contribution to the literature on photography, Carpenter's research offers both a timely polemic and a timeless resource for those who use a camera.
What does the world look like? What feelings does it stimulate? Why do we photograph it so urgently? Since 2009, Danish photographer Albert Elm (born 1990) has pursued his curiosity about human existence with a restless energy and intrepid wanderlust, crossing far-flung time zones, boarding the Trans-Siberian Railway, traveling alone in Dubai, China, India, or just walking through his neighborhood in Copenhagen.
What Sort of Life Is This remixes Elm's distant and local journeys into a bright, bewildering panoply of narrative fragments and surreal compositions that feels both global and personal, fractured yet strangely complete. Photographed using a 35mm film camera (color and black and white) and referencing numerous styles and genres, the work explodes with the spontaneous color and complexity of life?tender, violent, lonely, joyful, bizarre. Equalizing the exotic and the banal, the book treats every picture as if it were made in the same mystifying place: the world itself.
Le livre Little de Tim Carpenter complète une trilogie de livres photographiques enracinée dans la sensibilité et l'approche de la pratique de l'« appareil photo » qu'il a élaborée dans l'essai intitulé To Photograph Is To Learn How To Die (2022). Moins formellement rigoureux que Local Objects (2017), moins introspectif et linéaire que Christmas Day, Bucks Pond Road, ce nouvel opus canalise la perspective de l'esprit sinueux d'un enfant, ouvert aux significations possibles, absorbant tout ce que les yeux rencontrent - traces, bâtiments, branchages, chemins, la lumière d'un après-midi dans le centre de l'Illinois - des symboles naissants partout, des images éphémères improvisées de l'esprit et de la matière.
From Augusta to Bristol, Brunswick and beyond, Johansson's chronicle of Maine combines humor and emotion with a sense of place
In 2023, Swedish photographer Gerry Johansson (born 1945) roamed the state of Maine with a Rolleiflex, curious to make new pictures in a region of America he first encountered in the work of Paul Strand five decades ago--he found Strand's views of New England "boring" at the time--and also wondering, "Why is American photography so focused on the west?" Johansson's Maine echoes the formal restraint of his earlier books, notably American Winter, Spanish Summer, Meloni Meloni and Pontiac, sequencing nearly 200 black-and-white duotones alphabetically by their oddly poetic Northeastern town names (Bath, Friendship, Purgatory, etc). Somehow, none of the Maine pictures draws more attention than any other, and the flawless and playful compositions never seem to repeat. As in all of Johansson's work, endlessly inventive arrangements of architecture and landscape orient the viewer in a specific geographic and cultural place while generously sharing his way of seeing, walking and thinking with a camera.
In November 2014, photographer Charlotte Dumas (born 1977)? author of the acclaimed Retreived, among other photobooks?began photographing the eight native horse breeds of Japan. Once necessary for farming and transportation, most of these indigenous breeds have lost their practical purpose and have declined in number. As some of the breeds are confined to small islands, many of the horses have never been able to migrate and their future existence is now uncertain. In some cases, these near-mythical animals have become symbolic of their place, like the Yonaguni horse, which?together with the world's largest moth and the marlin?is depicted on the manhole covers of this remote island. Each breed seems to unlock a history of its location and a story about the people who share its territory. This limited-edition artist's book, documenting Dumas' project to date, portrays horses from the islands of Yonaguni, Miyakojima, Nagano and Hokkaido.
