Hi, Monday, January 13, 2003, 9:54:54 PM, you wrote:
> One blanket recommendation, buy anything you see by John Szarkowski. Fine > writer. I agree. I used to have 'Looking at Photographs', but it disappeared somewhere along the way. Since it's been reprinted I keep meaning to buy it again, but have yet to do so. > Tell me about James Ravilious--I've never heard of him. He's not terribly well known, but his work is world class. I will quote from the blurbs on his books: "Born in 1939, the son of Eric Ravilious, the water-colourist and wood-engraver, and artist Tirzah Garwood, James Ravilious first studied, and taught, painting in London before taking up photography and moving to North Devon to work for the Beaford Arts Centre. For the next 17 years he [...made...] his own in-depth record of a rural tradition that is inevitably fading." This means he spent 17 years photographing in and around a small, remote farming community in a forgotten backwater of England. The photos are a soft, subtle and warm evocation of a life that was often hard and grim. He used a Leica M3 with old uncoated threadmount lenses, and shot contre-jour as much as he could because he liked the soft tonal gradation it produces. He also monkeyed around with his chemicals (compensating development, as per Ansel Adams. This is described in 'An English Eye') to increase the effect. The results seem to me exactly right for the subject. Many of the photographs are iconic in rather the same way that some of say Brassai's Hungarian rural photographs are iconic: once you've seen them it feels as though you've always know them. Alan Bennett describes his work well: "the picture he presents is harsh, unflinching and never picturesque. He photographs hard, ill-paid work, work that has gnarled and twisted the bodies of those who had to do it, and while it is Edward Thomas who is the poet quoted in the text, it is the plain speaking of Thomas Hardy that they recall for me". I think this contrast between Edward Thomas and Thomas Hardy is exactly right. Other people I've spoken to who know his work tend to be rather fanatical about it! --- Bob
