Paul Seawright's Invisible Cities

Seawright in conversation with Russell Roberts:

RS: For some your work might be in danger of creating a neo-colonial perspective as it is firmly situated within the narrow confines of the Western art world. Is this something you have considered?

PS: Obviously I have considered it, worried about it even. After my first trip to Africa I considered moving on to something else, uncertain how to resolve what was inevitably going to be problematic, no matter how I approached it...

...I'd argue that an external perspective has value and maybe is even enhanced by a post-colonial perspective, or at least a perspective that rejects the dominant Western iconography of the African continent.

Seawright recognises that Africa is a photographers trap. His method, which give priority to a 'neutral' and muted stance, attempts to deny dramatisation

I wonder though, if, by rejecting the dominating iconography, by stepping into his specialised world of art, and succeeding, that by this very action, he stumps himself. Perhaps, with this book, he'll fail to find appeal, and so also fail to inspire the prerequisite deluge of imitatative imagery straining to establish its own domination (Africa is to be avoided like the plague, I've noticed). No, I doubt it. I detect, even in Seawright's desolation, his vacant spaces, a faint pictorialism, a seductive aura, even if it is conceptual, that inspires us viewers, even while our attention is called to notice the buzzing electricity that bypasses the shanty town

This book contains an introductory text by John Reader, and, at the back, a coversation with with Russell Roberts. I would set it right beside Guy Tillim's Avenue Patrice Lumumba on the shelf.

Suginami : a book by James Luckett

James, author of consumptive has been around since the beginning of time in photography blog years and I'm happy to announce his book, subtle, beautiful and understated.

7x7 inches / 78 pages / 68 tritone photographs
hardcover with dust jacket

Available for purchase from Blurb.com: http://tinyurl.com/BlurbSuginami

all the photographs from Suginami can be previewed on Flickr:
http://tinyurl.com/SuginamiPreview

also see an interview by Stacy Oborn at her blog The Space In Between:
One Thing Done Two Ways: Elijiah Gowin and James Luckett on Making a Book.

Maya Goded - 'Good Girls'

Picture 01 - Mexico city. 1999. Patti, 16 comes from Chiapas. When she arrived in Mexico city, she was raped by several men. She was rescued by the police who asked her to testify against her rapists. Afterwards, one of the police and her lawyer put her on the streets and became her pimps. 

Picture: 02 - Mexico city. 2000. Afrodita is getting ready for her first communion by her mother, a prostitute. her father is the pimp of her mother

So you want to be a photographer?

The question of cash for writing reminds me of Paul Theroux; a while ago i read his book 'Sir Vidias Shadow'. Some writers, as Paul Theroux reveals about himself in this book, often have a sense of having to 'hide' (or at least not reveal, solidly) the fact that they are writers until they achieve some form of recognition (this is also true for photographers, as noted by Robert Adams who felt apologetic for being a photographer until he was earning money).

Saying that you want to write, or you intend to be a writer is not the same as saying, with confidence and absolute self belief, 'I am a writer.'

Publishing a book is one kind of recognition; a form of ritualised initiation, receiving acceptance from a successful writer is another (Naipaul accepts Theroux as writer). Any writer would be satisfied with this, but a little something is missing: would our writer not want to establish absolute certainty? Money may or may not be forthcoming - but gladly accepted if and when it does, it is the cherry on the cake, a final recognition; a medal of achievement from the reader. Money means that a writer can do writing all day and everyday if it so pleases him. When someone asks, ‚"What do you do?" you reply with comfortable finality: "I am a writer"

Had Theroux not achieved his recognition, would he have eventually stopped writing, I wonder? Probably not, but would he have called himself a writer? I propose, he would still be calling himself a teacher of English.

Ultimately it is the reader who bestows the title and money is one gauge of this, but writing from the heart does not require a title, nor recognition - except, surely, by at least one reader.

There is another perspective though, one where writing is a necessary skill for everyone. A journalist is a writer, a traveller can be a writer. Sebald, a master of writing (and found images - which he splices amongst his texts) himself, finds scientists to be better writers that bona fide 'writers'. Come to think of it, my favourite books are not written by writers but by journalists, scientists, investigators and the new writers of the age bloggers.

It seems this line of thought may also be true - we all now have a camera of sorts - for photgraphers. So you want to be a photographer? Perhaps this is good advice:

Don't, whatever you do, take a fine arts degree in photography, take a science degree (or a degree covering your subject matter to be, anything but photography) such as zoology, ecology, biology, agricultural science, or perhaps even an athropology degree, - being a doctor, too, would be ideal. This way your profession will pay for you, take you to interesting places and while your out there you can do photography.