covers ~ (embiggenable)
spreads ~ (embiggenable)
spreads ~ (embiggenable)
statement ~ (embiggenable)
YET ANOTHER PHOTO BOOK, the kitchen sink ~ a rich life of its own, HEADED TO THE PRINTING PRESS. And I must admit that when I began the edit to narrow the pictures down to the top 20, I was a bit intimidated inasmuch as there were over 160 pictures in the kitchen sink folder.
However, after viewing all 160 of the pictures as a group in Adobe Bridge, I was able to surprising easily cull out 50 pictures in my first cut. Then I opened those pictures and arranged them in neat rows on my monitor where, once again viewing them all together, it was rather easy to identify the 20 (actually 22) finalists.
All of that decided, I came to the artist statement challenge, about which Thomas Rink had a few thoughts (thank you Thomas):
…I think these pictures do not need an essay at all to go with them - they speak well for themselves. Absolutely no need to rationalize (or justify) why you made them! There is a high risk that an essay will appear contrived, which would rather take away from the series instead of adding to it….
I tend to agree with Rink’s idea to the extent that I have been considering (for a couple years) of simply using a quote from Paul Strand as a stand-in artist statement:
“Every artist I suppose has a sense of what they think has been the importance of their work. But to ask them to define it is not really a fair question. My real answer would be, the answer is on the wall.”
So, you can read my adaptation of Strand’s position, re: the artist statement, above. Although, in the case of a photo book, I may amend it to read, the answer is on the pages of the book