Warming up for My Sad Project as well as blowing off some steam about a largish trend in photobooks:
Artist's Statement
(On medium because I want to publish it widely, or rub some people's noses in it widely, depending on how you view it, and I hate linking to this blog)
Bwahahaha. I think I've seen that project. A lot.
ReplyDeleteIt started off great, but grew a bit heavy-handed and tedious. Oh..wait...that was kinda' the point, right?
ReplyDeleteYep. Suck ya in and then punch you in the face. But was it really even long enough to qualify as "tedious"?
DeleteI have to admit I was pretty amused by the idea is a 300 million page art book with a syringe glued to almost every page. Don't tell anyone.
DeleteOn the other hand....
ReplyDeleteOn one of those favored photo forums of yours, Andrew, I posted a photo of a friend onf mine asleep on a bench in the local mall. On a good day he looks like a drug infused sicko with murder in his eyes and ice in his veins. He dresses like someone threw clothes at him in a fight, his breath smells as if he just ate a cane toad, his hair is permanently dreadlocked and he could very well be homeless when his wife kicks him out.
Other than that, he's a nice bloke with a good income and a fine university education.
For the effort of imposing his image onto said forum I was called a pauper porn photographer, taking advantage of the less abled, mentally ill, and destitute members of our society and that I should be ashamed of myself.
Grant you, I was taking advantage of him. He would do the same for me in the circumstances. That's why we are mates.
I'm not about to do a photo book on him and others like him. I can't stand the smell. Then again, it is safer than photographing children in public or pointing a camera at an attractive lady, or photographing a policeman carrying out his duty, or a soldier in Vietnam or my mother in law.
What's left to write a book about I ask? 60 pages of flowers perhaps. Or the arse of naked women or dogs?
My favourite is Sam Abell's SEEING GARDENS. Truly! Just nice pictures of gardens.