Before I get attacked, let me preface that I think photography books are wonderful references, can have beautifully crafted reproductions that in some cases are superior to the original print, and they allow us access to photos that I could never see hanging on walls. I peruse them and use them for my enjoyment and education.
Yet the impact of seeing an actual print is so much greater to me. In a print, I can sense the presence of the photographer in all the myriad decisions that he/she makes in its production.
In addition, there is a kind of summing up in a book that I find a bit depressing. If the work isn't part of a series and therefore contextually dependent, doesn't the photographer really deserve that the viewer sees his/her work individually? A book is a piling up of many images that may have taken many years for the artist to produce and may reflect many journeys and stories inscribed in their own making. A book may represent and induced context that in some way overpowers the individuality of the work and applies an outside editorial filter. Even an artist-produced book may in a post-facto sense subvert the artist's real-time sensibility, by applying a chronologic, artificial order to a process that is far more chaotic and serendipitous. Are we too willing to trade the orthodoxy of the book making process for the intuitive disorderliness of much photography?
When I see a print on a wall or table, I see a work, without layers of post-facto ordering and context, and instead can immerse myself, like an ancient worshiper, in the dominion of the image.
Bookmarks