Thinking about images
The last few weeks I’ve been thinking a lot more about images, specifically photography, than my usual obsession with text/typography. I re-read Catherine Taylor’s poetic essay Image Text Music (where she hangs out with the spirit of Roland Barthes) and picked up Hito Steyerl’s latest book Medium Hot: Images in the Age of Heat that I’m looking forward to digging into.
I’ve been looking into photobooks online as a medium and culture. It's a distinct and developed category of artist publishing, and perhaps an originator of the field, with Edward Ruscha’s books Twentysix Gasoline Stations or Various Small Fires and Milk. I came across a 1965 interview in Artforum where he says "I think photography is dead as a fine art; its only place is in the commercial world, for technical or information purposes” and concludes the interview with "It is almost worth the money to have the thrill of seeing 400 exactly identical books stacked in front of you.” He dismissively seems far more interested in talking about the book form than he does about the photography. He talks about the importance of sequencing, albeit with the goal of a ordering a sequence "without a mood taking over."
I’m in no way well-versed enough to speak definitively about photography or photobooks, but it seems like a separate culture from what I’ve defined as my area of publishing research, more in line with the coffee table books of Phaidon. Of course there is some overlap and a vibrant DIY scene, but from my cursory survey online, the landscape seems dominated by white men with beards talking about gear or trying to philosophize/romanticize the medium without actually saying anything. There’s a certain cliché and repetitiveness in subject matter, and apparently, in order to properly sequence a photobook you need to sit with the images pinned to your studio wall for a few months… thankfully, I also discovered The Justine Files Youtube channel, where she approaches photography with a much more accessible, affective, and introspective lens, and collections like the Blue Hour Zine Library and Booklet Library.
Alongside my interest in the political economy of image production and circulation, and just a deep aesthetic appreciation for photography, I’ve started working on some of my own images towards creating a small photo publication. I’ve always wished I was better at photography, as I think it comes far closer to me as a form of artistic expression than through my design work. This being said, it’s therefore also something I’m kinda insecure with, where I compare myself to others far more than with my design. I’ve spent a long time digging through my photo library for shots that stood out, and started editing them as black and white images, both for practical (cost) and aesthetic reasons. It’s amazing how simply converting an image to b&w and adding a few adjustment layers can change our reading of an image and “deepen" its mood (Daido Moriyama is obviously one of my fave photographers).
Below is a small selection of the photos I’m working on, all shot on my iPhone over the years. There’s no specific theme, but hopefully they’ll come together in the publication in a meaningful way.
