C. 1979 I WAS STRUCK BY LIGHTNING, PHOTO-EPIPHANY WISE, WHEN I was invited by the author, Sally Eauclaire, of the book, the new color photography (Abbeville Press / 1981), to be her consultant about matters technical in the making of many of the pictures in the book. What that meant for me was that for the better part of a year, she and I would meet in my studio and spread out on the floor the work of the photographers to be included in the book.
ASIDE FYI, photographers such as William Eggleston, Steven Shore, Emmet Gowin, Emmet Gowin, Joel Meyerwitz, Joel Sternfeld, Roger Mertin, Jan Groover, Michael Bishop, Harry Callahan, Eve Sonneman, Arthur Taussig, John Pfahl, Neal Slavin, William Christenberry, Len Jenshel, Mitch Epstein, and many others. END OF ASIDE
iMo, the book is a must-have for any picture maker who wishes to break away from "those who express that which is always being done...whose thinking is almost in every way in accord with everyone else...Expression [which] has become dull to those who wish to think for themselves." And, for me, the book opened both my mind and my eye to the possibilities of what was suitable visual fodder for the making of pictures.
The book is long out of print but is still in demand. Used copies are available but prices can get rather steep. Although, soft cover editions can be had quite reasonably.In any event, the book is more than just a collection of pictures inasmuch as Eauclaire's writing / critque of the work is very interesting. Although it can slide toward artspeak at times, it is well worth reading.
Consider this excerpt from Chapter 2, COLOR PHOTOGRAPHIC FORMALISM....
Unlike those contemporary painters and critics who denigrate subject matter as an adulteration of the art-about-art imperative, the most resourceful photographic formalists regard the complexion of the given environment as potenially articulate aesthetic material. They consider the subject and its visual essence as indivisible.
These formalists perceive real objects and intervening spaces as interanimating segments of a total visual presentation. They test every edge, tone, color, and texture for its expressive potential and structual funtioning. Each photograph represents a delicately adjusted equilibrium in which a section of the world is coopted for its visual possibilities, yet delineated with the utmost specificity. The resultant image exists simultaneously as a continuous visual plane on which every space and object are interlocking pieces of a carefully constructed jig-saw puzzle and a window through which the viewer can discern navigable space and recognizable subject matter....These two contexts of the image coexist in conflict, producing a visual tension that transcends pure design.
I have always considered myself to be a photographic formalist and I have never read anything better than this excerpt which describes how I "see".
