THE SONIC BLOG Fotografie ist Kunst | Photography is Art

“100 Flowers” by Louis Porter has been published by Lozen up as a limited edition volume. The book is made up of one hundred photographs of flower beds installed by the Chinese government before the Olympic Games in 2008.

I love British documentary photography, especially those of the late 80’s. The climate of the island seems to favour an abstruse mixture of abruption and heartiness that is hard to find elsewhere.

Books like Martin Parr’s “The Last Resort” (1986), Paul Graham’s “Beyond Caring” (1986) and naturally Nick Waplington’s famous “Living Room” (1991) come across my mind.
Not similarly well-known, but just as beautiful, is Paul Reas’ “I Can Help” (1988).

Paul Reas throws a critical view on the British middle class, stuffed with a lot of empathy. Consumption shapes all areas of life: families in the supermarket, new shopping malls and show houses of new building settlements on the green belt.

Paul Reas’ book shows us with his hearts blood a bygone, more naive section of a stampede which is still running: Buy! Go! Go! Go!

The Los Angeles based photographer RJ Shaughnessy was so kind to send me his book “Your golden Opportunity is Comeing Very Soon“.

As often I’m a bit late with my article and in the meantime the book has been already reviewed in a well-meaning manner in several blogs. So it is still a good idea to send around something physical in our virtual age to promote the own work.

RJ Shaughnessy’s self-published book shows black and white images of gateways, road signs and parking posts at night-time in Los Angeles – destroyed and damaged by cars.

Many of the damaged objects are seemingly not recent victims of the night, but persistent and repeatedly battered by passing vehicles.

Stepping back a little bit, the book could be a laconic, but quite friendly comment on our technicalised, controladdicted world: Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. Imperfection and improvisation are an unavoidable element of our lives. And that’s a good thing!

Deanna Templeton’s self published book “17 Days” shows in rough beauty a collection of photos taken during a trip to Europe in summer 2007.

Deanna Templeton, born in 1969, lives and works in Huntington Beach / California.

The European view on the new world of North America was always very special. Equal if used for projection screen or escapism, from dream to nightmare there was always just a little space. This view of an outsider bestowed us with famous photo books like Robert Frank’s elegy “The Americans” (1958) or Jacob Holdt’s naive frightened “United States 1970-1975″ (1977).
In contrast to these, Bill Owens hardly less famous book “Suburbia” (1977) offers a wondering inner look: America looks at itself.

Bill Owens worked as a press photographer for the Livermore Independent when he – equally amazed and fascinated from his environment – started to document the living conditions in the suburbs of California’s Amador Valley in 1972. Owens photographed his friends and neighbours on opportunities such as Christmas, Thanksgiving, Birthday’s and Fourth of July. Seemingly unfiltered he shows the everyday life, pride and joy of life of the American middle class in the Sprawl of the San Francisco Bay Area.

The strength of the book “Suburbia” is surely the fact that Bill Owens, although part of the community himself, refuses a final judgement. While Owens shows great empathy for his subject, his images stay open to any interpretation. Therefore his book can be seen as criticism on the American middle class of the seventies, but also as (in retrospection) nostalgic appreciation of life in the California suburbs – an image of the American self understanding: “Here we are. And where else could we be?”.

I have some difficulties with the work of Michael Schmidt. At “Frauen” (Women, 2000) I did not like the subjective, male view on the portrayed women. “Waffenruhe” (Ceasefire, 1987), surely a very interesting book, was to dark, to much German for my liking.

When I flipped through “Irgendwo” (Anywhere, 2005) at a bookstore some month ago, it snapped immediately my attention. “Irgendwo” shows unplaces: supermarket parking lots, terraced houses and road crossings in the sickening shades of grey of Schmidt’s universe. Between these unplaces there are random portraits of people that can be found in these locations: secretaries, pupils, bank employees, stopping for a moment in time.

The places are well observed and selected. They provide a high recognizability. The portrayed humans seem familiar, but lost in remembrance. In addition some almost ironic details: an ugly wall used as background for a portrait, an air freshener on a driving mirror of a parked car, a hide in front of a playground with view on the town or just a bricked passage.

How does this world actually look? Why in this way? In calm and friendly words the book speaks: “Everything is alright. That is is the way it is. It’s ok. Let it be.” – and pulls over your head like a transparent plastic bag…

The Iron Curtain is long gone, but the line between east and west in Europe still remains visible. The photographer Jens Olof Lasthein spent six years travelling the eastern border of the European Union shooting “White Sea Black Sea“.

Jens Olof Lasthein, born in 1964, grew up in Denmark and now lives in Stockholm, Sweden.

Der eiserne Vorhang ist längst verschwunden, aber die Grenze zwischen Ost und West bleibt weiterhin sichtbar. Der Fotograf Jens Olof Lasthein reiste für sein Projekt “White Sea Black Sea” sechs Jahre entlang der Ostgrenze der Europäischen Union.

Jens Olof Lasthein, geboren 1964, wuchs auf in Dänemark und lebt zurzeit in Stockholm, Schweden.

Ute Behrend’s new book “Zimmerpflanzen” (house plants) has been published recently by Snoeck.

“Ute Behrend’s works are different, however. They come always in twos. Instead of meticulously dissecting the dual components of what you see and what it might signify, Behrend infuses her series of images with both elements. She fears neither disorder nor decoration, neither ornament, she takes private photographs, but it is an undefinable privacy, temporally localised as the present day in a place situated somewhere between the city and the surrounding environs and the holidays, of a generation between youth and mid-life.” – Christoph Ribbat

Ute Behrends neues Buch “Zimmerpflanzen” erschien kürzlich im Snoeck Verlag.

“Ute Behrends Arbeiten sind allerdings anders. Sie kommen immer zu zweit. Das, was man sieht und das, was es bedeuten könnte: Behrend legt beides in ihre Bilderserien hinein, statt es sorgsam auseinander zu sezieren. Sie hat weder vor Unordnung Angst noch vor Dekoration, sie fotografiert im Privaten, aber es ist ein undefinierbares Privates, in einer Zeit circa heute, in einem Raum zwischen Großstadt und Umland und Urlaub, einer Generation zwischen Jugendlichkeit und der Mitte des Lebens.” – Christoph Ribbat

The Norwegian photographer Einar Hansen self-published his book “The Fog will clear, the Snow will melt“. The handsome book offers images which are simultaneously appealing and cautious.

Der norwegische Fotograf Einar Hansen veröffentlichte sein Buch “The Fog will clear, the Snow will melt” im Selbstverlag. Das schöne Buch versteht das Kunststück Bilder zu zeigen, die gleichzeitig ansprechend und zurückhaltend sind.