Comments on: Photobook essays

By: Sean

Sean — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 12:43:20 +0000

On the flip side….. Walker Evans great photographic introductary essay to Agee’s Now Let Us Praise famous Men…… and in relation to the post on titles…. It is hard to think of a better one (in my humble and often misguided) opinion.

Cheers from Australia.

By: Amy de Wit

Amy de Wit — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 01:11:30 +0000

Nothing Personal, photos by Richard Avedon text by James Baldwin. They went to school together. I know this is somewhat late to mention this.

By: rg

rg — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 08:47:25 +0000

James Agee in Helen Levitt’s A Way of Seeing.

Szarkowski’s intro to Eggleston’s Guide does some ‘explaining’, but also a huge amount of enlargement, if that’s the word, for readers at the time.

By: Ed

Ed — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 02:36:39 +0000

I really enjoyed Gerry Badger’s essay in Jem Southams book “Landscape Stories”.

By: meica.

meica. — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 02:23:24 +0000

Somehow, I think we all missed the obvious; Jack Kerouac for Robert Frank’s “The American’s.” He still speaks about the work, and in some great detail, but I’ve always enjoyed reading it and as a part of the book. Kerouac’s words have always been exciting, and the narratives formed by the photographs spurn wild imagingatve tales setting a distinct and proper mood for the work at hand.

I did always really like Kerouac anyway, though, so I wasn’t hard to impress.
Still, you should all check it out.

By: Tom Morrissey

Tom Morrissey — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 18:04:43 +0000

Richard Ford’s the perfect guy to write about your work. A great writer, and a cool dude, or at least that’s my impression…. I’ve been holding off on buying ‘Niagara’, but with Ford coming to town to read from his new novel– maybe I’ll have him sign that, too…

By: Tom Morrissey

Tom Morrissey — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 17:57:11 +0000

If one deals with its absolutely over-the-top quality, there’s Michel Houllebecq’s essay in Thomas Ruff’s Nudes.

By: Observer

Observer — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 06:30:31 +0000

I’d like to add Jack Hitt’s essay in Tim Davis’s My Life in Politics.

By: David Kern

David Kern — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 16:39:10 +0000

I’ve always enjoyed the essay in Sally Mann’s “Immediate Family” by Reynolds Price. His writing always fills me with a tinge of regret and nostalgia for days long past, days of seeming innocence but actually fraught with the messiness of raw emotion and mortality. This particular essay points out the ability of photography to point out not only what we had but what we’ve lost and reaffirms the importance of the image as a little treasure from the past. This is a sentiment I cherish especially in the image-swamped world I find myself in today.

Will future generations have too much information and imagery from today? Will it destroy the aura of the past? The church down the street from me is closing after being in existence for over 100 years. I was there yesterday looking over photos from its history and it was such a profound experience. I didn’t have a clue as to who any of these people in these photos were but I was left wanting to know so much more about them and what kind of lives they led–who they were, what they felt–how rich their lives were. I was left wanting more–and it was this that was left unsaid by the photos that was so moving for me.

By: lodewijk

lodewijk — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 06:22:49 +0000

All the essays in Nadav Kander’s ‘Beauty’s Nothing’. They enhance the mood he wants to evoke with the images very well, they almost create a movie-like narrative and flow together with the photographs.