Yesterday the doorbell rang and the postman gave me a large parcel, well actually he put it on the doorstep and we exchanged greetings from a safe two metres. I knew immediately that 'Land' photographs by Fay Godwin and essay by John Fowles had arrived.
It has the look of a 'coffee table book', but the photographs are unpretentious, all of course in black and white format. Though that is not to be taken as a description for they have many shades of grey, and are luminous with the light. But initially there is a sharp sense of disappointment, we are accustomed to the bright, sharp colour of our cameras today that our eyes brush over these more sombre colours.
Reading Fowles preliminary words and the first thought, well who the hell let him write in such a negative way about photos when the whole book was devoted to the art of photography. He made this criticism, a photograph captures one second in time, not 5 seconds after or 5 seconds before. You can neither see the sides or the back, therefore what is the use of this random picture? He mocked the tourists, don't we all, who take photos willy-nilly of famous places but forget it is the direct experience of being there in front of the object for them to imbibe and understand the nature of the experience, not a camera. I can see arguments coming up;)
What were my favourite photos, Callanish stones on the Isle of Lewis stand out, there is a particularly vivid photo of the stones framed against a black sky. They are anthropomorphic the stones, suddenly you see cloaked figures, and the mind goes back thousands of years when the stones were lit by firelit and in the darkness the stones moved under the flickering flames to the watching crowd.
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| Fay Godwin - Callanish after a hail storm |
That Callanish photograph is beautiful Thelma. I agree about tourists taking photographs willy nilly but in their defence - certainly in my case - they arenot likely to be there ever again. I think for example of visiting Registan Square in Samarkand - magical and at lease I have a photograph to remind me of it (not that I can;t see it in a lot of books though). There is,, going back to the Callanish, something magical about black and white photography.
ReplyDeleteYes black and white photos have drama and theatrical tricks of aging the subject. I am not criticising by the way photos taken whilst on holiday. It was Fowles who has a very pernickety way of criticising, not read anything of his not even 'The French Lieutenant's Woman' which rose to such fame some time ago.
DeleteI look back at the pre-digital age with wistfulness, when only the wealthy or spendthrift would unthinkingly take photos at random. I don't bother to wait for a tourist to compose a shot before I walk through now. More often or not they are in their own photo in any case. There's a thought - a coffee table book of selfies at historic sites.
ReplyDeleteOur selfies or others? I expect when all these young people have grown old they will have a real boring time looking at their photos. Bath of course must be a nuisance with all the tourists wandering around snapping.
ReplyDeleteRome was the worst I have ever seen - hundreds of people with their backs to the Colosseum.
DeleteAs I have no chance of visiting such magnificent stones, I can only look. It's a bit like leafing through Ansel Adans,
ReplyDeleteWell I had to go and look Ansel Adams up Joanne, and see he was very similar to Fay Godwin, capturing the environment, again using the B/W imagery to collect the forces of nature.
DeleteThat is indeed a lovely painting - I had never seen it before. By the way, I have read everything that John Fowles ever had published. I chose him for my university dissertation in 1977 even though the only lecturer at The University of Stirling who was genuinely enthused by Fowles's work did not have space to be my guide and sounding board. I ended up with a disinterested Oxbridge berk who I wanted to throttle.
ReplyDeleteI think I shall hunt Fowles books out, he seems a good writer. Sad about your Oxbridge tutor but we are supposed to be above such constraints as far as the South/North divide;) My first husband was at Oxford, we married shortly after he finished his course. When stripped of its elitism, Oxford town is a pretty place.
ReplyDeleteAs for the painting it depicts light exceptionally well as the sun hits the field casting part in shadow.
I love the Holman Hunt picture - it reminds me of Gabriel Oak losing all his sheep when his young dog chases them over the cliffs . . . the light is so special.
ReplyDeleteWhat beautiful photos in that book. They remind me of some (only black and white then) photos I took with my cheap camera, when I was walking the dogs along the Roman Road across Thornhill Common, in heavy fog. So atmospheric.