The difference between the average photographer and fine art
painter is that less space is needed to take photos. On the other hand, the
photographer doesn’t “create” the way the painter and sculptor do, as he or she
has to gain the trust of the subject before pointing the camera. Photographers’
Sketchbooks, another great book from Thames & Hudson, displays the works,
and more importantly, the philosophies, or the photographer as an artist. The
artist’s words are treated as the studio.
Let’s start with Kiana Hayeri of Iran. She documents women
in her country, focusing on how the veil dominates (or benefits) their lives.
Her series titled “Your Veil is a Battleground” follows the lives of young
women at home, in the car, at parties, all with the subjects’ consent. One of
her four-photo pieces shows a woman with and without her head covering, with
different makeup and hairstyle, while another set (from the same series) shows
the woman in recreation, like parties, movies, dates, museums. It’s interesting
to see how Iran’s young people are accustomed to wearing black, perhaps as a
result of colors attracting the religious police’s attention?
John Chervinsky, on the other hand, works around props and
still life setups, particularly dull black backdrops. He admits he has a
fascination with the old black chalkboards of Harvard’s lecture halls, and
photographs black-painted apples and pears with white chalk patterns. While he
doesn’t require the massive mess-and-clean setup of the average painter, his
exploding fluorescent tubes required a bit more setup time!
Most of the photographers in this book, especially the ones
who document people, discuss the issue of trust. Most photojournalists are more
interested in the “other half” who are rarely seen, rather than the wealthy
classes, but this requires greater effort. While the upper classes will
probably be concerned with flattering imagery, the impoverished areas are wary
of any outsider. However, as with Susan Meiselas, the subjects aren’t finicky
about looking attractive. She gained the trust of locals in a poor neighborhood
of Lisbon, where the people and buildings resemble the West Indies, and took photos
of them going about their lives. They resemble Black Americans, only the
clothing is not as colorful and the people are much slimmer. It reminded me of
Ash Thayer’s book Kill City, where
she photographs NYC squatters, or the book A
Period of Juvenile Prosperity, about young hobos. The subjects clearly
weren’t concerned about being “dolled up.”
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