Another of the pleasant things about not having much to do externally is the opportunity - more than opportunity, the necessity - of reconsidering things slowly just to see if first impressions were right nor not.
That's led to a fresh look at some of my few monographs - and I mean looking as distinct from reading. What I discovered was that some of the more flamboyant photographers don't always age well. For example, my, to me, expensive Sumo doesn't hold up well: literally, off its perspex table-top lectern, it simply weighs too much and is too uncomfortable to hold on a cushion on my knees, the ergonomics turning it into a definite turn-off resulting in no casual couch viewing. In fact, into hardly any repeat viewing at all: who wants to stand up motionless at a table for the time it takes to consider as massive a sequence of photographs? As for the photographs themselves, on the times that I do summon up the spirit and gird the loins to do battle with the thing, my instinct makes me feel more and more that I am looking at the clever works of an accomplished con artist: I do not any longer feel that I am reading into the work of somebody with an irresistble drive to do what he had to do, but at somebody who had turned popularity/notoriety into a production line of more of the same. In other words, the extension and execution of a considered work-in-progress rather than the outpourings of an artist.
In direct contrast, I spent much of last night looking again at the simply-titled Jeanlopup Sieff from Taschen, a large book, but not beyond the comfort zone, and passing the cushion-on-the-knees test with flying colours. However, in order to preserve its beauty intact, I realised I had better slip off the dust jacket to prevent creasing it against the cushion. For the first time I saw the book without it. As with some people, it looks far better wearing its cover. And also confirms the practical reasons I do not buy in soft back books I want to keep. I rather think books that are meant to be cherished should only be produced in hard covers, another financial problem facing vanity publishing. Anyway, this book has often been read and not just looked at, thought last night I avoided reading. My copy comes in three languages: Spanish, Italian and Portuguese. In the past, I have made my way through it by jumping from Italian to Spanish depending on where I find the stumbing blocks of incomprehension: I discovered early that translation from the original can be a little too loose, changing sentiment within a sentence if not general drift. I wonder how accurate my impressions of Sieff can be, derived from two sources, none of them the original. In fact four, as most of what I have read about him has been written in English and only a little in French... Come to think of it, I believe he was of Polish descent but brought up speaking French. Being a bit of a mongrel myself, I kinda get how different languages colour expression of emotion: there are some things you just can't make come over the same in two different languages. Could be I just don't speak one as well as the other, but the impression seems too widely experienced for it to depend on an example of one. The thing about this Sieff book is that I can either sit and read it, which takes time as there is much to be read and digested, or leave the words alone and enjoy the images. I don't think I have ever managed to do all of both at a sitting.
(Another thing: since my cataract ops in August, my vision has changed completely around, and whereas before I could read anything without using specs, but found distance difficult, I now need specs for reading but happily not for driving. As a result, I see my books from much closer, and notice two things: it has become more necessary to look at the enlarged picture from a central position to avoid getting a distorted impression of it; the fact that looking at that Sieff book last night confirms just how crisp those Leica lenses were with film. He used Nikons, Rolleiflex TLRs and Hasselblads too, but his book makes a point of his love for the M4 and one of the 21mm lenses for it. And the crispness shows, even in book form.)
And what marks the huge difference between that book and Newton's Sumo and even the eponymous Hans Feurer from Damiani is that Sieff has just got so much to express: it's as much about the man as the work, and when I find both equally riveting, a double pleasure.
I await the energy to run the massive A Different Vision on Fashion Photography - Peter Lindbergh's tome - through the cushion-on-knees test. It fares quite well on Newton's lectern, thought it has to be admitted that a relentless flood of Teutonic darkness can become a bit heavy on both the heart and the eye.
That's how I pass the evenings if not immersed in some tv series or another on the iPad, which device has turned itself into one of my most valued possessions. It's the perfect piece of equipment with which to inspect one's navel: now in lockdown and unable to do my normal postprandial walks down by the sea both for the heart as for my digestion, I do the hour or more of what became chore on the terrace, but that holds the heat too well, so I wait for the evening for the exercise, and can spend part of the afternoon looking at my own website. The longer I linger on some snaps the more I can find in them that surprises me. And also the more commonality within them all. Perhaps it's true: we image people have one basic image inside us that we keep on remaking, over and over again. Or at least, that's what we do when we have finally discovered ourselves and our purpose.
Rob
