Pedro Meyer’s touching and elegiac remembrance of his parents has been reissued in various digital versions, twenty years after its initial publication as a CD-ROM. “I Photograph To Remember” reminds me of John Berger’s precious collection of essays in ‘Hold Everything Dear’, where, in talking about his friend Juan Muñoz and poet Nazim Hikmet, he writes:

…finishing with: “A reel of scotch tape stirred by a draught from a window is sometimes enough to move mountains.”

Mr. Pedro Meyer, thank you for your reel of scotch tape and draught, all lovingly laid out in one swirl. And as always, thank you Mr. Berge for always reminding us of the magical brevity of photos.

I just received – one of the most wonderful birthday gifts ever – a copy of   Michel Frizot and Annie-Laure Wanaverbecq’s ‘André Kertész’. Produced in tandem with a major retrospective exhibition that started at the Jeu de Paume, Paris, and now on its final leg at the Magyar Nemzeti Múzeum, Budapest (until December 31, so jump to it if you can!), this book has some great essays and around 500 exquisitely reproduced images. Kertész’ attitude and his photography have been very influential on the way I work as a photographer and teacher, and it is lovely to read essays that resonate with his passionate and holistic articulation of the poetic in photography…

“I interpret what I feel in a given moment. Not what I see but what I feel.” … “A good photograph will convey something not only to the eye, but also to the inside. Eyes are never enough. Eyes are always between the image and the soul…” – André Kertész, quoted on page 13 of the book.

Implicit in the comment about image being part of the continuum between seeing and feeling is an acknowledgement of a particular kind of photographic image - and as one looks at Kertesz’ work, intensely looks at it, we begin to realize that he is consistently compressing and conflating all the core components of the medium – time, focus, frame, distance, tone, optical distortion – with the core components of experience – memory, metaphor, narrative, place. This book, by presenting such a large body of work to us in one binding, should serve as a reminder to all students of photography: there is such a thing as a photographic moment, it is singular among all other visual media, and it marginalizes authorship. Barthes was right to recognize the power of Kertész’ work, but he missed the point slightly. Instead of placing most of his attention on photographs of people and the gaze (Camera Lucida, 1980), Barthes should have realized that he addresses the most magical aspects of Kertesz’ work in his earlier essay, Death of the Author, 1967. I know, post-structuralists are going to scream at me, and po-post-structuralists too… just chill out and read Author as if it is was a piece of prose poetry, fuzz your mind, and look with clarity at Kertész’ work. And don’t ask me to explain. All explanations are in my photograph above.

Thank you, Rachel, for this wonderful present. And thank you André and Elizabeth Kertész! (By the way, Elizabeth passed away on the 21st of October 1977. I was about to celebrate my 20th birthday while at art school.)

two versions of Elizabeth and I, 1933  and 1960
André Kertész

Notes of Orwell’s on the dimensions of one of the houses en route to Wigan Pier.

He notes, ‘Anyone not knowing the house is liable to step through cellar door into vacancy.’ From his archives. ‘The Road to Wigan Pier‘ is one of the great books, along with others such as James Agee’s ‘Let Us Now Praise Famous Men‘ (with photographs by Walker Evans) that tries to address the economic, environmental and political burdens and disparities faced by the poor in the early 20th century. A must-read.

One week to go for daily posts (seventy years to the day) from George Orwell’s diaries! 

Falling Man.
Taken by Richard Drew at 9:41:15 a.m., on September 11, 2001 

Three friends have now recommended Jonathan Safran Foer‘s novel, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Jack, Amy, Bjorn, your joint pointer carries a lot of weight and it is the next book I read. Palimpsest has some interesting discussion about the book.

While feeling my way through the information cloud around Foer and this book, I came across another fascinating book: Giles Goat-Boy by John Barth. Anyone else read it?

by Taha Muhammad Ali, from ‘New and Selected Poems. 1971 – 2005

“The Bell at Forty: The Destruction of a Village

The past dozes beside me
as the ringing does
beneath its grandfather bell.
And the bitterness follows me,
as chicks trail
after the mother hen.
And the horizon…
that eyelid tightly shut
over the sands and blood—
what did it leave you?
And, what hopes does it hold?

30.VIII.1988