These are not cheerful photographs. They are direct, and specific metaphors for what would seem to be a profound and prolonged suffering which encompasses impotence, fear, deprivation, and loss. Their power resides in the preciseness with which they describe not merely what the eye has seen but what their maker has experienced. […]
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From now on, when people start to talk about or to write about the illustrated book as a phenomenon in book cultures, they’re going to have to start taking into account the photography book as a kind of entity in itself. […] This is a problem because an increasing number of [photography] books that come out are, in fact, extended statements. They are intended as unified books and intended to be dealt with as a unit of work. We’ve got to re-educate ourselves within photography to sitting down with that kind of book, and not the “greatest hits” kind of book which used to be the tradition. […] If photography books are to become really viable as products, without meaning as “merchandise,” if they’re to be able to be self-sustaining as a produced artifact, they’ve got to go beyond the market in photography. […] Irene Caesar, engrossed in her process, seems entirely oblivious to my discomfort, even when, quietly, I give verbal indications thereof. Crouching, kneeling, sometimes squatting on a soft-sided suitcase of mine, she appears to have entered a trance state in which she channels the spirit of David Hemmings in Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1966 film Blow-Up. Squirming around to adjust her vantage point, she calls out, repeatedly, “Give it to me! Give to to me! Show me your eroticism!” […] |
 SPJ Research Award 2014All content of this publication is © copyright 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 by A. D. Coleman unless otherwise noted. All materials contained on this site are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced for commercial purposes without prior written permission. All photos copyright by the individual photographers. "Fair use" allows quotation of excerpts of textual material from this site for educational and other noncommercial purposes.
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