I read The Bang Bang Club by Greg Marinovich and Joao Silva in one sitting.
Before you've even hit the second page, you're immersed, bullets singing past you, rusty bars and heavy knives jabbing at you, and the smell of petrol on flaming flesh.
The insanity of racial violence bought to you by way of 'beach bum' photographers and, dowsed with dollops of intimacy and history; girl friends, mandrax and bhang parties, Reuter contracts, suicide and Afrikaner gunslinging racists (itching for a full on battle to the death with black people). Out of this chaos emerge images that win the pullizers, sell newspapers and signpost history.
But the awe dies, you've realised, that in fact, bringing yourself to within a hairsbreadth of death (yours or someone else's), might not be so heroic after all, its like voyeurism into lunacy, but once you've seen it, an apathetic deadness sinks in, faith in life destroyed when you see how much is now left to repair.
Apartheid has barely faded and the Rwandan genocide is coming alive and then Iraq and Iraq, and shit you know I've missed some. bang, bang, bang!
Submitted by Philip Cartland on 25 December 2007 - 11:00pm.
"Obviously there are far more areas of black than white in my vision, and the space that I'm so interested in looking is to be gotten through my use of Black as a POSITIVE space rather than a negative - (The way most photographs dict[tate]"?
Page from Gibson's diary describing his experience press checking the 'Somnambulist'.
Source: archives of the Center for Creative Photography (Univ of Arizona), I am the fortunate owner of a book, describing the best of these archive, called 'Original Sources'.
'Original Sources' has lots of interesting and rare info, including diary entries, collected pamphlets, letters and paraphernalia that reveal otherwise hidden motives and ideas behind the photographers and their images.
Submitted by Philip Cartland on 5 June 2006 - 11:00pm.
Here's a little snippet from the book, the Zanzibar Chest, by Aidan Hartley:
"I managed to get a vehicle from some Tutsi guerrillas who knew me, and Lizzie piled in with photographers Sebastiao Salgado and Giles Peress of Magnum. Snap, snap, snap went the photographers, all in a line. Up ahead, a truckload of bloated Hutus blasted by RPG: snap, snap, snap. Go on for five minutes. Heap of corpses seething with maggots, partially eaten by dogs: snap, snap, snap."
A ripping book.
Submitted by Philip Cartland on 22 April 2006 - 11:00pm.
Not surprisingly Nobuyuyoshi Araki dominates this book I'm reading, 'Setting Sun - writings by Japanese photographers'. Some photographers are quietly subtle, not Araki.
Here are some juicy bits.
"As a photographer I am confidence, overconfident - abundant - sensation, constipation sensation." - Photographic discourse at a strip show
There are quite a few self references to his own intelligence and genius:
"Why does the morning of a hangover have to be nice weather? The strong autumn sunrays hit my intelligent head and double my headache." - Photo apparatus between man and woman
"As usual I have got a hangover. My intelligent head is throbbing." - My father's lover, or, an introduction to portrait photography
Relationship politics behind the scenes of a strip show. Apparently Rika was sleeping with her sisters boyfriend, and, by the sounds of it, Araki himself. Her sister, Komadayu, tolerated it but couldn't handle it. Obviously Rika could.
"The adorable Rika, who squealed as we got into the bath together, who was so shy (yeah, right!) - women are more terrifying than photography." Photographic discourse at a strip show
Stuff-it to silent shutters and invisible masters:
"Even when I take photographs on the street, I don't hide the fact that I'm shooting. Until the person notices that her photograph is being taken, there's no motivation to release the shutter." - Photographic discourse at a strip show
Araki believes himself to be an advocate of anything woman:
"If you photograph 'something' amazing. it'll be an amazing photograph. That's obvious. In which case, the people being shot, must have something amazing for the photograph. They make big effort, women do. I cheer them on. A photographer is the cheering section for a woman's moan, and her slave." Photographic discourse at a strip show
There are couple of references to his desire to touch his dead mothers breast - can't quite work that one out myself. Also he wished he could photograph her at the funeral but received 'suspicious' looks from his relatives. Here he speaks of the phone call that informed him of his mother's death:
"I'm always up before my wife and am idle - I tooled around with my dick, as I usually do, and thought about my Mother. And yes my premonition was on the mark. The phone's ring was like a cry." - My Mother's Death, or An Introduction to Family Photography
Here's an earlier post on Araki with links to images etc.
Submitted by Philip Cartland on 7 March 2006 - 12:00am.
This week I found a translation of written works by Japanese photographers, called 'Setting Sun' (book sale link, short review). A cursory glance convinced me it might be worth buying.
There is too much to go into here but I thought, over the next couple of posts, I'd say a thing or two about 3 of the photographers that stood out - things perhaps, that you wouldn't pick up just by viewing a few images alone.
Ordeal by Roses
Eikoh Hosoe, quite a well known and regarded photographer on this side of the world, writes about his photo session by invitation with Yukio Mishimi (pictured in the thumb, a prolific writer, who is considered by many critics as the most important Japanese novelist of the 20th century). The book arising from this was called 'Ordeal by Roses' (Barakei) and expressed the themes of Life and death. Now, here's the story as written by Eikoe Hosoe himself:
"Despite the fact that 'Ordeal by Roses' was a document about life and death, I felt it taboo to mention the word 'death'' in regard to the theme of the book, until the fall of 1970. At the end of that summer, we changed the sequence and layout of the work for publication of a second edition. Mishima chose the titles for each section and called the final chapter "Death" then asked for my approval. I accepted the suggestion at once, having known all along that the essence of the last section was morbid. Shortly after this decision, on November 25, 1970, Mishima committed suicide by seppuku [ritual suicide, was an intregal aspect of feudal Japan. It developed as an intregal part of the code of bushido and the discipline of the samurai warrior class.] at Ichigaya Heights."
Later Hosoe writes:
Several of the photographs were blown up and used in the exhibition [called 'Yukio Mishima', held in October, a month before his death] in a section that Mishima titled 'River of Flesh', beside which he wrote: "I will never admit the decay of the flesh"
Its worth getting hold of the book to get the subtleties and details.
More images by Hosoe
Submitted by Philip Cartland on 4 March 2006 - 12:00am.
