all photos ~ (embiggenable)
ONE MONOGRAPH IN MY COLLECTION THAT NEARLY TAKES my breath away each and every time I view it is Eggleston’s book, 2¼. The title derives from the fact that all the photographs were made with a Hasselblad camera, a medium format–120 film–camera that makes 2¼ inch square photographs. The book ticks all of my photo hot buttons; square format, everyday / commonplace referents, a seemingly random assortment of referents (people, places, things), and, to my eye and sensibilities, an exquisite sense of form.
While the photographs–made after those in his Eggleston’s Guide–bear a striking resemblance to that earlier work, nevertheless they do not–as assembled in this book–seem to have the same narrative / tell the same story as the Eggleston’s Guide book. However, the photographs do convincingly hang together as a cohesive body of work thanks to Eggleston’s singular vision, aka: how he sees and pictures the world.
The idea of the grouping of photographs of disparate referent matter that nevertheless hang together is a topic that has very much been on my mind recently. So much so that I have been engaged in creating a new body of work–titled 10 PHOTOGRAPHS–that consists of multiple small format books–8x8 inches–which each contain 10 photographs of dissimilar subject matter–see the new gallery on my work page.
the first book grouping
My reasons for creating this project are somewhat muddled; a) it’s a kinda thumbing my nose at the fine art photo world and its insistence upon thematic bodies of work. b) it’s also a challenge to viewers–can they / will they take the time to view each photo independently yet nevertheless see the connectedness to the other photos? c) seeking an answer the question of, is my singular vision enough to link together my disparate referential subject matter photos together as the work of a single photographer? d) would it be possible to mount an exhibition with only 10 photographs of very different subject matter?
All of that written, be assured that I still believe that thematically singular bodies of work are a very valid manner of creating and exhibiting work. However, I especially appreciate the work of those photographers who are able to explore a multitude of subject matter yet still maintain a consistent vision across that body of work.